19. Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam (4/30).

Liam and I decided to try our hand at some handmade ornaments this year. We made two kinds. One, I bought clear plastic balls that we decorated with glitter glue on the outside, then filled some with shredded wrapping paper and the others with glitter. The other kind was pipe cleaners strung with beads and jingle bells. They were nothing special, even the ones I made looked like they were done by a 2 year old :) but we both had a lot of fun making them!

Love how Thomas snuck in on this photo! I bent most of the pipe cleaners, but Liam strung almost all of the beads and bells. The blue one front and center he made completely by himself, I never touched it.

53. Bake cookies from scratch.

I actually completed this one twice, since I had two cookie exchanges recently. For the first exchange, I made peanut butter blossoms, which as you can kind of tell in the photo, the cookie part was dry and kept breaking. Not sure what I did wrong.


For the second exchange, I had to bake 6 dozen cookies, and I must have made them a little small because it ended up being over 7 dozen! I made chocolate mint cookies. This is only half of them (you can see more baking in the oven):



These turned out well, especially considering that my assistant's motto is "I eat dough!" :)

November 2010 Progress

Completed in November: 1/101
Current Total: 31/101

5. Read 101 books (77/101).
I read 5 books this month, bringing my total to 77.

37. Take a class.

This month, I took an online writing class called "Romance Writing Secrets". I've been writing since I was thirteen or so and always dreamed of publishing a novel. I've decided this year to really kick myself into shape and give it a go. I really enjoyed the class and learned so much more than I expected to. I'm actually taking another class in December, and maybe a few more after that! :)

October 2010 Progress

Completed in October: 4/101
Current Total: 30/101

5. Read 101 books (72/101).
I read 5 books this month, bringing my total to 72.

65. Vote in something other than a presidential election.

So, I voted today. I spent a lot of time this week doing research on the internet about the candidates, but still didn't feel that great about any of the choices. Anyway, I'm glad I went and voted. Hopefully, I'll like my choices better next time!

44. Take a bubble bath.

This weekend, Liam spent the night at Bill's parents' house. While he was away, I took the opportunity to relax in a nice bubble bath with a glass of wine and a good book. Heavenly, even if it was Toy Story bubble bath! :)

54. Carve a pumpkin.

After visiting the pumpkin patch today, we came home to carve pumpkins. I'd never actually carved one before (Bill usually does the honors). Liam of course enjoyed helping.




I went for a traditional jack-o-lantern face, and it was easier than I thought. Bill then decided to show me up by creating a Thomas the Train pumpkin for Liam...




Liam thinks this pumpkin is the coolest thing EVER!


The finished product

19. Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam (3/30).

This morning, Liam and I hosted playgroup at our house, and I had some mini-pumpkins for the kids to paint. Liam was very excited about this and couldn't wait for his friends to get here so that he could paint.


Ella and Liam


Wyatt, Ella and Liam painting


Liam's Hitler mustache

Painting the pumpkins was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, after the paint dried, it all flaked right off the pumpkin! In fact, most of it had actually blown off in the breeze in the backyard while it dried. Maybe that's because it was washable paint, but that's not really optional when you are dealing with 2 year olds! :) Oh well, they had fun, so it was still a success!

19. Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam (2/30).

I added this to the list because I've been a total slacker on arts projects for Liam, and he really enjoys them. So, we've enjoyed a few craft activities together in the past week.

First, I tried out a variation of this Halloween craft. Liam has a ton of broken crayons, so we decided to melt them down and make new ones. This was a fun afternoon craft but peeling all the paper off the crayons took a looong time!



After they were peeled, we put the broken pieces in a muffin tin and melted them in the oven.


Trying out his new crayon "disks".

Our second craft was inspired by some silk fall leaves I found in the Target dollar bin. Liam had a blast glueing leaves to construction paper, and then we decorated with some glitter. He really impressed me with his attention span on this one. I expected to do 1 or 2 pages, and he just wanted to keep going and going!

14. Try 5 new foods (4/5).

So, this was a few weeks ago, but I forgot to add it to the blog. We made a traditional southern jambalaya that included okra. Now, growing up in the south, I probably had okra as a child, not knowing what it was. But as an adult, I had always avoided it because it just didn't look appetizing. I mean, hello:



Anyway, it wasn't bad at all, and I'll definitely eat it again!

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (10/10)

I went to a Mom's Night Out tonight at Lucky 32 in Cary - yummy southern comfort food. Best of all, I was thinking this was a different restaurant I'd already eaten at, but I hadn't eaten here before, so this completes my 10 new local restaurant challenge - yay!

September 2010 Progress

Completed in September: 0/101
Current Total: 26/101

5. Read 101 books (67/101).
I read 4 books this month, bringing my total to 67.

Hopefully this is not cheating, but since we didn't take a trip for our 5th anniversary, I'm changing #19 to be "Complete 30 new arts & crafts projects with Liam". I am almost halfway through my challenge, and only 1/4th through my challenges - I'm hoping to step that up in the next few months!

50. Have at least 10 real date nights, no babies allowed (5/10).

On Thursday night, Bill and I went to the Science of Beer event at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. It was a fun date night, with lots of local beers to sample. We even got to walk through the butterfly house after dark, which was fun because all the butterflies and birds were asleep. I was staring at one butterfly on a leaf right in front of my face, and he hopped on my shoulder for a few minutes. Anyway, I didn't enjoy this as much as the Science of Wine, but I'm just not that adventurous with beer, and didn't really like any of the samples I tried. Bill tasted several beers that he really liked though, and got some information on home brewing that he'd like to try out some time. Overall, it was a fun night out!

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (9/10).

Well, we officially failed on #19 - Take a trip for our 5th anniversary. It just wasn't feasible this year for a number of reasons, but we did go out to a nice dinner at 18 Seaboard in Raleigh. The food was great, and we would definitely eat here again! Now, I wonder if I'd seen my swordfish being caught on Swords: Life on the Line? :)

68. Go to at least 5 concerts (1/5).

So, 1+ years after starting this challenge, I finally made it to a concert! If you knew me pre-Liam, you know what a long drought that is for me! I made a quick pilgrimage up to Boston Saturday morning, walked around the city and had lunch with Chrissy and my mom, before beginning our drive down to Mohegan Sun casino in CT for the concert. This was my first time seeing Aerosmith in 4 years (which again, considering I've seen them +/- 25 times, was a really, really long time!) We were sweating it out, not having tickets until about 1pm that afternoon. Chrissy and I have had so many awesome adventures together, and they often are like this one, not coming together until the last minute.

We were seated on the floor, about 3 rows off the end of the catwalk and maybe 15 feet to the right of it. At an Aerosmith show, you'd probably rather be near the end of the catwalk than the main stage, because Steven spends at least 50% of his time there. Having heard so much drama and crap about them over the past few years, I wasn't sure what to expect, but the show was phenomenal. This was their last US tour date, and tons of their family was there. Steven's dad, all 3 of his daughters, and his sister were there. Chelsea and Mia sang with him several times (Chrissy and I walked past Mia in the casino earlier in the evening as well). Brad's son (Harry, I think?) came out and played guitar during Come Together, which was really cool.

They looked and sounded fantastic, Steven can still rock purple lace pants and a bare chest at age 62! They were all obviously having a great time, and Joe and Steven especially seemed to be getting along like their old selves. They played for over 2 hours. "Movin' Out" was probably the highlight for me, I've heard it live before, but Steven told us the story about how it was the first Aerosmith song ever written. It was an awesome night!

Chrissy made this awesome video during Dream On:


1 down, 4 to go! No one I like has been coming to NC lately - I really, really hope to get to some more concerts soon!

August 2010 Progress

Completed in August: 2/101
Current Total: 26/101

5. Read 101 books (63/101).
I read 5 books this month, bringing my total to 63.

74. Visit 5 places in the NC region I've never been to before (4/5).

We've just gotten home from a week at the beach in Emerald Isle, NC. I've put lots more photos on my main blog, but we really enjoyed the beach here. It was so uncrowded, even on the last week before school started back. We are hoping to make an annual family beach vacation, and would definitely visit Emerald Isle again!

7. Take Liam hiking.

This morning, I brought Liam hiking at Umstead State Park. It is a wonderful state park right here in the middle of the Triangle that Bill, Lacy and I used to hike at all the time before Liam came along. We chose an easy, 1.4 mile loop and set off.

Liam really enjoyed that our trail led alongside a stream!




We saw a hawk, some squirrels, and several of these millipedes:

Liam did great, and enjoyed looking at various leaves and pine cones that had fallen along the trail. There was a slight miscommunication where he thought we were hiking to a playground, and he was disappointed when he realized that was not the case, but he enjoyed himself anyway. He got tired about 2/3rds through, and I carried him for a little while.


Snack time at the lookout deck



This was a lot of fun, and I hope we can do it again soon. I have so many wonderful memories of hiking with my dad and sister when I was growing up, and I hope to create some of the same memories for Liam. I wish I could have brought Lacy with us today, it felt wrong hiking without her, but I didn't think I could handle the two of them by myself. Maybe next time, we'll go on a weekend so that Bill and Lacy can come along too!

14. Try 5 new foods, 18. Eat at 10 local restaurants, and 100. Try Indian food.

Bill's parents had Liam over for dinner tonight, so Bill and I seized another opportunity for a non-munchkin-friendly meal. We headed first for Waraji for sushi, but for like the 3rd time in a row, they were closed when we got there. I am SO done with them - must find a new sushi restaurant! Anyway, we decided to try Azitra in Brier Creek for Indian. I've always wanted to try Indian food, but was afraid I wouldn't know what to order and had been waiting around to go with someone who knew their way around the menu.

In the end, I don't know what we were waiting for, neither of us had ever had Indian before, but we did just fine on our own LOL, and it was really good! I got chicken tikka masala (because I'd heard of it before haha) and Bill had chicken curry. We also got an order of naan bread. It was all delicious! We will definitely be eating here again.

July 2010 Progress

Completed in July: 0/101
Current Total: 24/101

5. Read 101 books (58/101).
I read 12 books this month, another record - I am on a total book reading binge right now! This brings my total to 58.

I am a year into this challenge, and should be at least 1/3rd of the way through my list of goals, but as you can see, I'm only about a quarter of the way through. Time to step it up, or I'm going to be owing a lot of money to charity when this is over LOL!

50. Have at least 10 real date nights, no babies allowed (4/10) and 18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (7/10).

Nana and Grandpa picked Liam up on Tuesday afternoon to bring him to their house for the evening, so Bill and I took advantage of the opportunity to go out to dinner by ourselves. We went to the Tribeca Tavern in Cary, which was SO good. We are definitely going to eat here again! Also, they get as much of their food as possible from local NC farms, and all of their meat is antibiotic/rGBH free, which was also a big plus for us.

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (6/10).

I went to a mom's night out with my playgroup at Daniel's in Apex. I had driven by it many times but had never eaten there. The food was excellent, as was the company! :)

June 2010 Progress

Completed in June: 2/101
Current Total: 24/101

5. Read 101 books (46/101).
I read 9 books this month (wow - I think that is a record!), bringing my total to 46.

36. Go to the movies 5 times (2/5).

I won tickets from the News & Observer to an advance screening of Eclipse on 6/28. I already crossed off #69. Win something - but now I've won twice from the N&O - awesome! I took my mom to the screening, since she was in town visiting, and we both had a great time even though she's never read a Twilight book. We were afraid it might be super crowded, and we got there about an hour early. We had great seats, and were entertained with all sorts of trivia and giveaways while we waited. People were there from Vitamin Water and G105. The screening was a lot of fun, and the movie was great also!

63. Try a new flavor at Coldstone.

This afternoon, to celebrate our return to the real world after a week of house confinement while Liam was sick, as well as because it was 96 degrees, Liam and I went for ice cream after his nap. We tried the Oreo cream filling flavor, with Oreos and fudge mixed in. It was good, although a little too sweet after a few spoonfuls. Liam also had a sample of the cotton candy flavor, because it was blue, and he's obsessed with anything blue :)

48. Play in the rain.

Liam and I had a really long week cooped up in the house while he recovered from yet another virus. We were even more bummed that we had to miss a pool party on Saturday that we had been looking forward to. He wasn't quite party-worthy on Saturday (not yet 24 hours without diarrhea) but was feeling well enough to go splash around in the sprinkler and baby pool in our backyard for a little bit in the afternoon. While we were out there, it started raining. Bill and Lacy immediately headed for the hills, but it was so hot, and Liam was soaked already anyway, so he and I decided to play in the rain instead. It was SO much fun - we are totally going to have to do it again! We ran around until it stopped raining. I did get Bill to poke his head out the door and take a quick picture of us:

May 2010 Progress

Completed in May: 2/101
Current Total: 22/101

5. Read 101 books (32/101).
I read 5 books this month, bringing my total to 37.

60. Start eating more sustainably.
We are working on this one, although I'm not ready to cross it off yet. Since watching Food Inc, Bill and I have been making much more of an effort to eat sustainably, and I feel like I understand much more what that means vs before when I just thought of organic and non-organic. We try to eat 1-2 meatless suppers a week, and rarely eat meat at breakfast or lunch. We now buy all of our milk, eggs and meat at Whole Foods and Earth Fare, although we are not doing well on our produce. My goal is to start eating more local produce, and I hope to join a CSA such at the Produce Box. I don't feel like I can cross this one off until we reach that goal.

41. Watch the sun set.

While I was in Florida this past weekend for Julie's wedding, I also got the chance to watch the sun set. Julie and Will were married in a sunset ceremony on the gulf coast overlooking the water. Living on the East coast, watching the sun set over the ocean is not something we usually get to see! :)

66. Accomplish something noteworthy that wasn't on the list.

So, I'm pretty sure that watching a shuttle launch - let alone the LAST shuttle launch before the space program gets shut down - qualifies in this category. This past weekend, Bill and I flew down to Florida for Julie's wedding. By a very cool coincidence, we arrived in Orlando just before Friday's shuttle launch. We hoped to get a glimpse, and ended up having a perfect view by pulling over to the side of the road on the way out of the airport (along with everyone else on the road).


It looked sort of like a missile from where we were, just a big fireball shooting up into the sky. The Orlando runway made a perfect open space for us to watch. We were told we'd be able to hear the sonic boom, but we weren't able to hear it over the roar of all the airplanes at the airport.


Super cool! My dad is an astronomer and used to work for NASA, so I grew up fascinated with space, space shuttles, etc. I'd still love to see a shuttle launch up close sometime, but this was pretty awesome for now. It was amazing how quickly it had moved completely out of sight, leaving behind just the smoke trail in the sky.

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (5/10).

Last night I went on a mom's night out at 1750 Ordinary in Cary. Good food (hush puppies, yum!) and great company! :)

April 2010 Progress

Completed in April: 0/101
Current Total: 20/101

5. Read 101 books (32/101).
I read 6 books this month, bringing my total to 32.

Man, I really need to step it up - I'm falling way behind! Hopefully I can cross off a few things in May!

March 2010 Progress

Completed in March: 2/101
Current Total: 20/101

5. Read 101 books (26/101).
I read 3 books this month, bringing my total to 26.

9. Take 1001 photos in 1001 days (979/1001).
I took 89 photos this month, bringing my total to 1068 - mission complete!

75. Sort and put away mail the day it arrives for 30 days.

I've been doing this for a while, a few months probably. Liam and I go to get the mail together every day, and he opens all the envelopes for me. Then we sort it into piles of bills, coupons, cards, etc. and put it all away.

February 2010 Progress

Completed in February: 1/101
Current Total: 18/101

5. Read 101 books (23/101).
I read 3 books this month, bringing my total to 23.

9. Take 1001 photos in 1001 days (979/1001).
I took 115 photos this month, bringing my current total to 979 - looks like I will polish off this challenge next month!

14. Try 5 new foods (2/5).

While we were at Nana's, Bill and I shared a Maine lobster risotto appetizer. I had never had risotto before (neither had Bill, which shocks me given his background!) and it was delicious.

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (4/10), and 50. Go on at least 10 real date nights, no kids allowed (3/10).

On Friday night, Bill and I went to dinner at Nana's in Durham. We loved the restaurant, and the food was soooo good. We were there for two hours, and as parents of the world's busiest toddler, I can't tell you how nice it is to sit in one place for two hours enjoying good food, good wine and whine-free conversation!

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (3/10).

Last night, I had a mom's night out at the MacGregor Draft House in Cary - good food, great company, and fried pickles, yum! :)

15. Have breakfast in bed.

This morning, for Valentine's Day, Bill and Liam made me waffles and brought them up to me in bed. Liam had a great time helping Bill make the waffles, here are a few photos:

18. Eat at 10 local restaurants I've never eaten at before (2/10), and 50. Go on at least 10 real date nights, no kids allowed (2/10).

Last night, Bill and I went out with some friends of ours in Raleigh. We had planned to use the Raleigh Winterfest ice skating tickets I won, and then go to dinner, but the ice skating rink was pretty lame! It was small, and the ice was coated in like 3 inches of slush, and there was literally not one person there skating. So, we just went straight to dinner. We ate at Tir Na Nog Irish pub. The food was just okay, but they had a great selection of beers, and we really enjoyed hanging out there. It was a great munchkin-free night!

January 2010 Progress

Completed in January: 0/101
Current Total: 17/101

2. Get back to my pre-baby weight.
No, I'm not there, not even close! But, I've got my new pedometer ready to start wearing, and a new workout DVD, and I am ready to get serious about getting in shape.

5. Read 101 books (20/101).
I didn't read any books this month, again.

9. Take 1001 photos in 1001 days (864/1001).
I took 110 photos this month, bringing my current total to 864.

December 2009 Progress

Completed in December: 4/101
Current Total: 17/101

5. Read 101 books (20/101).
I didn't read any books this month - oops!

9. Take 1001 photos in 1001 days (754/1001).
I took 143 photos this month, bringing my current total to 754.