Showing posts with label About Us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label About Us. Show all posts

Sunday, March 24, 2013

2012 - A year in the life of the Fabulous Baby Striblings

I did this last year, and even though it's OH, MARCH - I really did like how it recapped our year. So, here we go!

JANUARY

The biggest event was our super-awesome Mickey and Minnie themed 2nd birthday party!! We had a teeny snow day, started potty training Jules, and it was bad, did a birthday questionaire, and had our 2 year dr appt. 

FEBRUARY

The babes had their first sleepover at Gramas house, we conquered potty training, did an About me post, made our yearly trip to see my sister sing in a fab 80's band, got our 2 year portraits done, thought the babes were super funny, and Josh fell in love with trains.



MARCH

We had a much needed date night, started our what might be weekly trips to the zoo, died when my kids sing,  talked a little bit about my kids fashion, died again when Josh wore a bowtie, changed out their closet, talked poop (I'll never forget this), thought my babes were super smart (outside of the poop) and thought Pinterest could suck it. 



APRIL

I talked about how shy Jules was, saw the Brentwood firetrucks, did a Stella and Dot party, spent more time at the zoo,  and did some fun DIYs around the house.



MAY

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo, did some more zooing, talked alot about Josh, then Jules, then took a trip down memory lane on the blog. We went to their very first baseball game, and did a Baby Update!



JUNE

Went to the zoo (jeez), started PRESCHOOL!! whee! We went to a fun wedding, and Jake and I took a little trip to Atlanta to see the Yankees. They spent the night away again, and keep making me laugh.



JULY

I took some pics of the babes, took the kids to Cheekwood, realized I don't remember ANYTHING, cried when I saw this video, it rained and I realized how cute that could be. I went to traffic school, talked about their "Tacos", went to their first "LIVE" show, and went to the zoo again!



AUGUST

WE GOT A HOUSE!!! We also went to the fair and rode rides for the first time, and felt like a complete failure for the first time, started looking at house pictures like crazy, (we completely gutted it), did another episode of Our Favorite Things, and showed some random weekend pics.



SEPTEMBER

The babes went to a drive-though safari, I got a work award and took Jake to Disney World to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, wrote a letter to Josh, reviewed our Day Out with Thomas the Train, went to our VERY first movie, and took a look at our new house demolition!




OCTOBER

October is Heart Walk month, found the BEST post ever about parenting, blinked and my babes have grown up, made an Ode to our old kitchen post, and wished the hubs an awesome 10-year anniversary.


NOVEMBER

We moved upstairs to our still-unfinished house (oh vey), had a pathetic Halloween from a hotel, posted the Good Morning America video, and got their school pictures back!!



DECEMBER

We went to Fantasy of Trees in Knoxville, and put up the Kid tree. I compared mantels, took a walk down memory lane with Santa Visits, met Santa here, here , here and here. Our elf returned! We went to an outdoor Dickens festival and took some crazy cute pictures, and then showed off this years Christmas Card!! I made some teacher gifts, and did our yearly trip to Opryland Hotel. We made cookies, and had an awesome Christmas here and here. 


All in all, it was a super fun year. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with us and keeps coming back to read about us!

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Friday, May 25, 2012

Flashback Friday - It's been three years!

It makes my breath stop when I realize it has been THREE YEARS since I started this blog. THREE YEARS since I finally saw those two very light lines that informed me that, YES, I was, indeed pregnant. I remember it like it was yesterday.

When you are trying to conceive, it makes you very, very in tune to your body. You notice every single pull, every twitch, every cramp, and then google the crap out of it. You take your temperature every morning of every cycle day, look at your graph, and then analyze the crap out of it as well. (You didn't know you could do that? Well, you can!) You take drugs (the legal kind), you become buddies with the ladies that work in your fertility center. You fight with your husband constantly about all this. And then you get a negative test, and you do it all over again. And again. And again.

I felt implantation (or what I had hoped was implantation - it was of course). I remember where and when it happened. (I took great notes through all this as well). A few days after that I took a test. Jake was already at work. It was faint - REALLY faint. I called my RE (Thats a Reproductive Endocrinologist) They did blood work. My beta was a 40. Pretty good for only 11DPO (days past ovulation, I was a pee-on-a-stick addict). I thought I might surprise Jake is one of those super cute ways you see on Pinterest. However, when he picked me up to go hit golf balls (for a fleeting moment I was going to pick the sport back up) I just blurted it out. He wasn't happy, or sad, he was just "just". I think he probably thought it would never happened, so he never got his hopes up. So say I was elated, was an understatement.

I was one of the lucky ones. It finally worked for me after 2.5 years of trying. I knew God had a plan in there somewhere, I just didn't realize it would be in the form of a little girl named Jules and a little boy named Josh. Twins!

Thank you all for reading along on this fantastic journey with us. What a ride it has been!

What you can't see this line? You must not have "super-sonic-can-see-the-faintest-of-lines" eyes.

Jules!

Josh

34 weeks.
28 weeks


3 days old

one month
four months

one year

18 months
2 years

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Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Eleven.

This has been making its way around the bloggy blogs, and I was lucky enough to get tagged by Amy at A Good Life, so I am uber excited to play along. Yippsies.

Here are the rules:
1. post these rules.


2. post a photo of yourself & 11 random facts about you.


3. answer the questions given to you in the tagger's post.


4. create 11 new questions & tag new people to answer them.


5. go to their blog/twitter & let them know they've been tagged.

So, here are my random facts about myself. (in no particular order)




1. If I have my choice in public bathrooms, I usually use stall #2. I have no idea why. It's just a thing. The first one is too close, and there is no need to walk all the way down to the others. I am so weird, I know.

2. My biggest pet peeve in when you are in parking lots and you are waiting on a space, and they turn towards where I am waiting. Drives me crazy. Turn the other way, yo.

3. I don't like to shop. Crazy, isn't it? Thats why no one is happier than me that the Internet exists for such things. I have a gigantic selection and can pick what I want without having to walk through several stores to not find a thing.

4. I clearly am a lover of chicken sandwiches. I really didn't notice it much until my mom started pointing it out. I ate them (and chicken biscuits) alot while pregnant. However, I have noticed that whenever I go out to eat, that is usually the choice I make. Weird!

5. I am the middle sister of three girls. And we are as different as could possibly be.

6. I had a pot bellied pig for about a week my senior year of high school. ( I loooved them  - still do) but we had to give it back to the farm, b/c my dad pretty much freaked. However, I stopped eating pork and haven't since. Her name was Mrs. Oscar Meyer, lol.

7. I was a broadcasting major in college and my entire life I wanted to be a news anchor. Then while interning, decided I hated local news, and hated the stupid local angles stations put on national stories. (Oh, there was a Tsunami in Japan? Let's go interview Joe, who lives down the road, who vacationed there in 1975.) So, then I became OBSESSED with the political process in college, like all those crazy college kids and changed my major my senior year to Political Science. Now, I am so jaded by politics now too, and think they are all evil-doers.

8. Over the years, my celebrity crushes have come and gone but one remains - Mark-Paul Gosselaar. LOVE him, love him. He is my forever crush. Also, I loved Jason Minor (from the Mickey Mouse Club, lol) and Chris O'Donnell. I once SWORE I saw Jason Minor (I am well aware not a one of you probably knows who in hadey I am talking about) at a car repair shop I was at here in town. I wanted to ask him soooo terribly bad. After all, who (besides me) would  ever recognize this guy all these years later? Well, I didn't talk to him, but immediately googled him when I got home. And yep, he lives in Brentwood as a financial advisor. Seriously. He was FAMOUS at one time. I would have made his year had I said anything to him.

9. We probably aren't having any more babies. Aside from the infertility stuff and not wanting to go through all that again, I just don't honestly think I could do it. Having two toddlers running around is one thing. Adding the up-all-night newborn phase is something I don't want to experience. Then add to that how I have one perfect girl and one perfect boy, and I don't want to press my luck, ya know? Then add to that that each stage has been so awesome! Then add to that the rides at Disney would be all off since we would be a family of 5 then. It's not off the table, but it's leaning that way.

10. Someone was shot at my high school a few years ago and it was also all over the national news. It made me sad then and also now thinking about Ohio. I hate that my alma mater has changed so much. Its getting better since then though, which is good.

11. I can't wait for my babes to start watching movies. Crazy isn't it? Who would wish that? Their attention span is a 30min show right now, but I have tons of Disney movies I CAN'T wait for them to start watching. I hear moms talk about Cars, Tangled, Nemo, etc. And I am jealous, lol! I am crazy. But, I love Disney too :)


Okay, so how was that for random???? Now, here are Amy's questions for moi:
1. what is one thing your working on to change/better about yourself? Being consistently healthy. I have my spurts and OMG if I had the time I would be! I would love to work out 3 times a week, but it just doesn't happen that way. I am lucky to get out once. I had high hopes of doing another half marathon this year, but there is just no way I could train for 1-2 hours a day.


2. what is your dream car? I am not a car person. I never have been. I dunno. I guess because you go through that "OH WOW this car is AWESOME!!" Then three years later you think its a crappy piece of tin.

3. if you could have one talent you don't already have, what would it be? I wish I were better at photography. I love it, but I think you have to have an artists' mind and eye, and I certainly don't have that. I was a performer, and a math nerd. An artist I am not. But, photography is my goal. I am working on it.

4. what is your favorite part of the day? When I come home from work. I get home right when they are having their post nap snack and they are so very happy to see me :)

5. what is your favorite day of the week? Friday.

6. what did you want to be when you were a little kid? An actress or singer, lol. Didn't everyone practice their autographs all the time for when they became famous?

7. what's your favorite physical feature about yourself? My boobs and lips. Weird, I know. But I have great lips, and my boobs are perfect. They fit my frame nicely :) And I have had friends that are too big/too small and it really messes with your self-esteem if you are a woman. So, I am lucky in that sense.

8. what would you love your kids/future kids to grow up to be professionally some day? Famous?? Ha, Ha. Honestly I have no idea. I did one of those psychic things when we were TTC and Ruby told you if you were going to have kids, and what they would grow up to become. She said I would have a daughter and she would be a teacher, and that I would also have a son and he would be in banking. I dunno. I want so much more for them, ya know?

9. what is a pet peeve of yours? I listed a big one up top. Another one is poor customer service for no reason. A prime example: I was in Ann Taylor this weekend and bought a skirt on sale for $29.99. I took it up to the register and she rang it up at $39. I told her it was on sale, and she said it wasn't. I asked "are you sure?". She said yes. Didn't bother checking, Didn't do a thing. So, of course, After I paid, I went and looked and it was on sale, and I had to stand back in line, do a return and re-purchase for her not taking 2 seconds to go see. That crap makes my blood boil.

10. what would your husband/significant other/best friend say is their favorite thing about you? Probably my silliness. I am a funny, quite silly person in general and love to laugh.

11. what is your dream vacation? Hmmm. This one varies. My dream destination of all time has been Paris, but as you can see, its wasn't all that. However, I love busy cities and love exploring and seeing sights, and I love a beach resort. So, I guess it depends.

Okay, So I am tagging Angela, Mandy, Blair, and Christi
 
And here are my questions:
 
1. What is your favorite guilty pleasure food?
2. What is your biggest (or just one) regret in life?
3. What is your favorite hobby?
4. What is your most favorite piece of clothing and why?
5. What game show would you most love to be on and why?
6. If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
7. Name one thing you would want to change in your life right now. (that you haven't already blogged about)
8. What is your favorite thing about each child?
9. What would you love your kids/future kids to grow up to be professionally some day? ( I liked this question)
10. What does your family do at night for dinner? (cook, take out, etc?)
11. Name a great random memory.


Don't forget the vote!

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2011 a year in the life of the Fabulous Baby Striblings

I have seen this over at Mandy's Blog, and thought it was pretty neato, so I decided to copy it. Plus, it WAS a great year. My babies went from one to almost TWO!!! It's kind of neat that they use their whole year as their age year as well (they turn two on Jan 8).

Anyway, here is a look back at our uber fabulous year:

JANUARY
January was a fun month for us! We turned one, and had a super fun Elvis Birthday party. I ended our monthly pics (sniff), I made some New Year's Resolutions, and we played in the snow!



FEBRUARY
In February, I started doing Weekly Photo Projects, couldn't figure out what to feed my "now toddlers", had my peeps help me with what to do with all my pictures, and started getting super excited about consigment!


MARCH
March was fun! It was starting to get warm again! We started doing Mommy and Me Mondays (which I need to start back), I posted about consignment sales, celebrated St Pattys Day, and I did a DIY tutorial on photo canvases!


APRIL
April was Easter - yay! We met the Easter Bunny, and I did my first Steppin Out Saturday. We got our one year portraits back, we went to the Masters, and I did another DIY on Bow holders.



MAY
Shoo - I have a super cute little boy. I realized poor Jules will forever be my little mini-me :). I celebrated my "line-aversary", and  we celebrated my second Mothers Day!!










JUNE
In June, I posted about a "day in the life" with the twinnies, and decided it was time for a bigger car.We surprised Jake in his office for his birthday, which was fun, and we also looked back on his 30th birthday! Jules wanted to be a diva for lunch, and she is also a super cutie. We celebrated Father's Day, and I started having to think about outfits for their 18m photoshoot. Worst thing? My harddrive crashed and I lost everything that was on it.



JULY
I went to the super-awesome U2 concert, and discovered how awesome the Dollar Store is when you have 18m olds. Josh and Gus became BFFs, and we had a pretty fun 4th of July. I remembered when I was really cool and ran the Country Music Half Marathon and also blogged a bit about what it was liking owning your own business.  

AUGUST
We hit another milestone and moved up to big girl and boy car seats.I pondered if I was a photogaholic, and  the little blog was a favorite over at Circle of Moms! Jake's sister got married, and I flashed back to lots of pictures from my past. I also went to the beach, and also participated in another surprise wedding!

SEPTEMBER
Football season kicked off, and I had a birthday! I talked about how I am obsessed with Musical Theater, then wrote a bunch more posts about college football, which I'm sure noone really cared about, lol. I also looked back on my maternity fashion, and we got our 18 Month photos back.






OCTOBER
The Nashville Heart Walk happened, and was fun. Jules cracked me up. We went to many more football games. I did a tutorial on a DIY growth Chart, and looked back on my trip to Paris last year. We celebrated another anniversary, and I looked back on our wedding! I started posting about decisions I have made as a mom, and I also did another DIY tutorial on Tutus! Um, and the babes were Mickey and Minnie for Halloween, and super cute.


NOVEMBER
I traveled to New York and to Las Vegas in November, so didn't post as much. I was super thankful for lots of things, and also did a Holiday Home Tour of La Casa


DECEMBER
I started a 25 days of Christmas posts (although didn't quite make it, oh well) Among the fab ones were The DIY tree topper, the Advent Calender,The opryland Hotel, and  my Christmas Card Display. I also showed off my Christmas Cards. I also recapped on Christmas in these three posts. It was SO MUCH more fun this year with the babes!


I hope your 2011 was as much fun as ours was! Thank you so much for reading my blog and keeping up with the Fabulous Baby Striblings! we love sharing our lives and our journey with you!

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

A-Z of Moi




A little bit about me on your Thursday! I saw this over at Danielle's blog, and wanted to do it as well. Thought all my (10) readers wanted to know a little bit about me. So, here ya go!

A. Age: Right off the bat an age question! A very young 32. Crap. 33 as of Sept 8th. (still having a hard time with it)

B. Bed size: Queen. We will probably get a King if we ever find a new house to move into.  We're looking. Here's hoping!

C. Chore that you hate: Emptying the bathroom trash cans. Hands down. I would rather clean toilets.

D. Dogs: No dogs, but two cats - Gus and Zelly. (don't post about them near enough, poor things)

E. Essential start to your day: Coffee

F. Favorite color: Red

G. Gold or Silver: Depends on the outfit. Right now I am into gold accessories, though. But my rings are platinum.

H. Height: 5'1". I'm petite :)

I. Instruments you play: I used to play the piano at one time in my life, also the flute. I sing, though, so the instrument I have used most often in my voice (yes! It's an instrument!)

J. Job title: Youth Market Director for the AHA

K. Kids: Two of the cutest, funniest, smartest around: Joshua and Julia, born 1/8/10. Wanna see a picture of them? Look in about any post on this blog. Its about them after all!

L. Live: Brentwood, TN - suburb of Nashville, TN - Basically where all the rich country music stars live - although we don't live anywhere near them :)

M. Mother’s name: Mary Glenn (she has a double name - so sweet and southern)

N. Nicknames: Mandy, MPS

O. Overnight hospital stays: When I had the babes (of course) and when I had these awful, horrible cysts when I was about 5 weeks pregnant (thanks fertility drugs)

P. Pet peeves: There is nothing NOTHING more irritating to me that bad customer service - when you expect certain things and get the complete opposite. Thats why Chick-Fil-A is awesome. Also another Pet Peeve is when you are waiting on a parking space in a parking lot, and that person backs up and turns in your direction. Just annoying, really, but it drives me crazy. Why not just turn and go the other way so I can pull in without waiting for you?

Q. Quote from a movie: "Luanne, why don't we just go up there and say "This was our last weekend together, and we didn't feel like going to Fort Sumter and touring goddamn colonial homes. We wanted to go to the beach and meet boys and go to wild parties and dance." I mean why can't we tell them the truth?  - from Shag, quite possibly the best movie ever.
R. Right or left handed: Right!

S. Siblings: Ginny, 18 months younger, and Leslie, 4 years older. Yes, I am Jan Brady

T. Time you wake up: I get up a little eariler than the babes during the week - 6:30 (they get up at 7) and then at 7 on the weekends. I wish they would learn to sleep in some..

U. Underwear: Hanky Pankys are the best ever

V. Vegetable you hate: Brussel Spouts and Onions. Onions are made by the devil.

W. What makes you run late: A better question is what doesn't make me run late. I am a horrible - HORRIBLE judge of time and long it will take for me to do something.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: teeth, body (from a car accident) and back and neck (chiropractor)

Y. Yummy food that you make: I make lots of yummy things. I love this pasta that I make with pesta and ckicken and sundried tomatoes. I also love making creamy pastas too. but mostly I get requested for my Buffalo Chicken Dip

Z. Zoo animal: I like Elephants and really big animals that you normally woudln't see. But if you asked Josh and Jules, they would say the Meer Cats and the Goats at the petting zoo.

Please, please please - give us a vote! The babes would appreciate it so much! Just click the link below
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Wanna play along? Answer the questions and link up!

Friday, June 26, 2009

About Us

Hi! Welcome to my "Baby Book" of a blog. I started it literally the day I found out I was pregnant, because I didn't want to miss one single second. You can read about that fabulous day here. I also am terrible at scrapbooking, and babybooking, so I thought a blog was the next best thing. I have posted about every little thing that has happened, and also have found a hobby for photography along the way (I guess all moms develop this, since they take thousands of pictures of their babies!). Thanks for stopping by. Here is little bit about sweet lil' family of four.

This is me:



This is me and Jake (go Vols!).



We got married on a fall day in Knoxville, TN on October 19th, 2002. If you are in the south, you should know that all fall weekends revolve around football. It is what it is. So, we chose one of two fall weekend that did not host a UT football game. And here we are on our wedding day. In love and ready for our journey together.



We decided to wait a while to start a family and just enjoy being married. We traveled alot, and enjoyed each other and had fun. In early 2007, we decided it might be time to have kids. Little did we know that God had other plans for us. We spent the next 2.5 years of peeing on thousands of sticks, getting prodded, tested, procedured. surgeried, pricked, etc, etc, etc, until we finally got the answer we had been wishing and praying for.

I know you can't really see it, but as a pee-on-a-stick expert, there is a beautiful line :)
Then another surprise was waiting for us. Multiples! Then our real journey began, and I went from this:

10 weeks

to this:

34 weeks
Now our little life is perfect and complete. I would not change our journey is any way. It has made me be a better mother, I believe. These babies were very wanted and very loved way before they came to us, and I cherish every second with them. Welcome to our crazy, funny, ABSOLUTELY fabulous life.  You can contact me at apstribling@gmail.com