Travel bug grounded.

Everyone who knows me knows I have a serious case of the travel bug. It's not all my fault, it runs in my family. I say this as my parents are preparing to head on a two week cruise in the next month or so. It's become pretty standard in our family to go somewhere at least once a year, often even twice.

It wasn't always that way. I didn't know it as a child, but money was pretty tight in our family. My dad was self employed and my mom was at home with us. Somehow they managed to scrape together enough money to send us to a great Christian school, which left little room for other things. Camping! That was our family vacation every year and we loved it! We did manage one or two larger vacations on a serious budget, and they usually involved being gifted someone's timeshare condo or doing a lot of driving.

Later in my teenaged years my dad ended up becoming a supervisor for a large construction company. Things became financially more comfortable and my parents ended up buying into a time share. It's really been a wonderful thing for our family because it provided yearly opportunities to go away on a real holiday as a family. Holidays for us haven't just been about seeing new places and laying on the beach. It meant a full week or more of straight family bonding time and those memories stick out strongly in my brain.

Once I graduated high school and started working most of my money saved went to trips, with or without my family. Mexico, New York, Europe, California, I did whatever I could. Then I enrolled in college, met my fiancée and started flying to Ontario instead of the beach.

My husband was so not use to this travel lifestyle when he married into my family. He grew up in a small town that was a good 6+ hours from a major airport. And he had just finished a good 4 years in University as a poor student when we were wed. Suddenly he was thrust into a family where normal dinner conversation involved sentences like,"So where are we going next?" And "What's the plan for AFTER this next trip?" Sounds crazy I know, but when you are working with time share folks everything has to be booked far out haha.

We've been married for almost 4 years now and in that time we've been blessed to have gone to Hawaii twice (once for our wedding), Disney twice and on two cruises. Yes I realize that's not normal, thats why I said BLESSED! We aren't rolling in dough here, far from it. But we've managed to score some really good deals and as mentioned, the timeshare helps ALOT!y

But this year we aren't going anywhere. At all! Camping won't even be happening because I don't plan to sleep in a tent with a 2 month old. We've really got to buckle down and save now because our family is growing and we just won't have room for us all in a townhouse. We are trying to watch the budget extra closely so that we can achieve a different kind of dream - a detached house with a basement and hopefully a bit of a yard.

So this means the traveling I've become accustomed to will be gone, at least for a while. Yes, next year we plan to go back to Disneyland with the kids, but that'll probably be it for the next 5 years. I whole heartedly admit that that will be very hard for me! It'll be a lifestyle change for sure. I've gotta say though, having young children will definitely help me stay grounded. Hawaii with a toddler is just not as relaxing as Hawaii with all adults haha.

So here I sit, drinking my cup of Kona coffee, dreaming of the beach while a toddler runs around me making car noises, loudly bringing me back to reality. But that's okay, cause he is pretty darn cute and brings me joy in a whole other way that vacations cannot.

Feeling good!

I am happy to say that I am finally feeling normal again! I have the energy to do what I need to (for the most part) and other then being starving half the time my tummy is behaving! I still go to bed early, but that was pretty standard with my last pregnancy so I'm thinking that is just normal for me.

I'm hungry pretty much all the time now and everything I eat taste way better then I remember. Noah and I made banana chocolate chip muffins this morning and I've already had two. Yeah, bad Carolyn. But I'm making sure to balance it out with lots of healthy things. Noah enjoyed tasting a few chocolate chips while I baked.

Mmm! These things are good!

Speaking of Noah, he is going through a bit of a picky phase. He definitely has his foods that he loves (mainly cheese, cheerios and yogurt) and it's difficult to get a good amount of vegetables into him unless it's in the form of spinach. I realise that's totally normal for kids though and I am just trying me best to give him a balanced diet.

My husbands parents are arriving next week from Ontario and will be spending about 10 days with us. We have tickets to the Michael W Smith concert as well as the Christmas train in Stanley Park. There is also a Kick off to Christmas party at our church that we will be attending with them. It'll be so great to be able to celebrate with both sides of our family this year. Very special!

Well, I am on the family computer downstairs and it's pretty much freezing. So I am off to warm up on my main floor. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Family dinners & baby eczema

We had my family over for dinner last night. I don't have them over a lot because there are 8 of us all together and I'm just not use to cooking a big meal for that many people. It tends to stress me out. But almost every Sunday we have lunch at my parents place so I feel like I need to step it up every now and then and treat them for a change. This time I decided I wasn't going to worry about how everything turned out and it helped. I really enjoy family dinners and it has certainly been made much easier since my discovery of the slow cooker pot roast! Mmm mmm good.

Earlier in the day I took Noah to our doctor since he's had these weird rashes on and off for several weeks. His skin has been super dry and it's gotten to the point where one of his ears have been bleeding (poor guy.) Turns out Noah has eczema! He's got a small infection at the back of one ear and very bad patches of eczema inside his ear lobes. So we've been given antibiotic ointment for those areas along with a prescription cream for the other patchy areas of his body. Expensive stuff! I've been instructed to slather Noah with Aveeno baby lotion 3+ times a day, bath him twice a week only and avoid everything scented on him (hello Norwex laundry detergent!) Hopefully he will be one of those kids that grows out of it by age 2. I was told that I'm lucky Noah is so laid back because eczema can make babies miserable and he has been fine for the most part.
The more people that tell me my son is laid back and easy the more I feel like our next child will be a doozy...

You can see on his cheek and chin his eczema. The cream is working well though and it was almost gone today!