Eat, Eat, Eat.

So, if any of you have had a baby, you know that their day revolves around mostly eating. You know that if you do not feed them enough during the day, they usually do not sleep through the night. You basically try to remember every little thing on the baby's routine. No studying or college can prepare you for the struggles of parenting. You are trying to raise a human being. I know it sounds silly, but every night when Lila goes to sleep I think to myself "We did it. She has survived another day". No Joke. It is so hard. You worry about all of the little things and everything that goes wrong. My mind never stops. I constantly think about what I should be preparing and trying to keep her on a routine...and maybe by the end of the night, I will remember to use the bathroom. Not only are you physically exhausted, but mentally. Is it sad that all I want to do is sit down and write a blog? Writing my blog is relaxing. 

Why am I venting, you ask? LILA IS EXHAUSTING. She has just started to really crawl. That means that wherever she wants to go, she will go. Lila does not want to be restrained by the high chair anymore, she wants to stand and walk around (while we hold her hands). Want, want, want. This child rarely wants to sit still. She goes off to do bigger and better things daily. 

This past week has been full of activities. My BFF, Chandler, came home for two days, we had a mommy/daughter playdate with Brielle and Sarah, Lila and I went out with David's sister, Casey, and her boyfriend, Aidan, and tonight my in-laws took us three out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. 

Wednesday Lila and I met Sarah and Brielle in Ellicott City to walk around. It is always a lot of fun getting together with them because we can relate to so much. Both married young, stay-at-home moms, daughters close in age, and we like to talk :) Most of our time was spent at a little cafe having lunch..First Lila ate lunch, then us moms, and then Brielle, so it took up a lot of time. From there we got out our carriers because the shops are very small and strollers were too big. 

These girls have so much fun together!

 

Lila fell asleep on the way back to car.

After we picked David up, they had some fun outside. 

Whenever Chan is home, it is a pretty tight packed schedule. She comes home shortly from college and tries to visit with everyone. Thursday Chandler, her mom, me and Lila went to the mall and Chandler's sister's field hockey game. We walked around the mall while Lila flirted with anybody with eyes and a smile. It is almost embarrassing how many people she can get attention from. She is truly a flirt.

Lila being waited on while relaxing. Nothing new.

I was also able to get Lila's hair up into a ponytail! 

Friday, Lila and I went to the mall with Casey and Aidan; I just love them! They sorta remind me of David and myself, but with more camo in their relationship HAHA. They just work together so well. Lila loves visiting them both, especially Aidan, her boyfriend ;) We walked around the mall and grabbed what we needed, ate lunch (spilled a large drink EVERYWHERE) and headed back to pick up David. 

I put Lila in one of my baby outfits. Of course it was huge because it's 18 months, but I love it!

And finally..tonight David's parents took us three out to Sparrows Point Country Club for dinner to celebrate our anniversary. It was so good! Lila behaved pretty well! I would have too though if my mom fed me french fries, cheerios, PB&J sandwich, and a little strawberry shortcake (waiter brought it over for her). While Lila enjoyed all of her good foods, we all drank wine/beer and had a fantastic dinner. David ended with a big ice cream sundae with NO wet nuts. 

Tonight before dinner..

I need to get off of the computer now...my arm/shoulders are killing me from laying here too long. 

XO

-LS

Salt, Tequila, Lime

This weekend was so much fun! I have not had so much fun since before I was pregnant! Dave and I went to Lynchburg college to visit my best friend, Chandler, for her 21st birthday. It was nice feeling like I was in college again and did not have any "care" in the world. However, I did miss Lila a lot! Now that I am a mom, there isn't a moment I do not think about that little baby!

We are on our way home right now, so I will be seeing her shortly. So excited! This was the first weeked I have been away from her. I did not realize how much I needed time away, until I actually went away. It was nice not having to look at the clock to see if it was time for food or a nap. I definitely enjoyed being away for a weekend, but it will be awhile until I do it again. I just enjoy doing everything with her or as a family so much!

Friday we got to Lynchburg around 11:30pm. Silly me figured we would chill and go to sleep.... Well mommy forgot about how college worked. We walked in and were welcomed with a shot and played "stump" within 15 minutes of getting there (not that I minded!)

This time, being able to drink was different for me. I felt like it was my birthday again (finally.) When you have been waiting for your best friend to turn 21 it is like you can finally celebrate together on her birthday! It was so fun!

Of course when I drink at night, I end up always waking up early. So both days chandler and I were up and waited a couple of hours for David to wake up. We went to a movie during the day Saturday (only $1 woo!), dinner with Chan and a bunch of friends, and finally ended up partying back at their townhouse.

This morning we also woke up early. Instead of chilling at home our last day, we went to panera and had breakfast and coffee, went on a 3 mile walk, and enjoyed cookout!

On our walk today

On our way home we stopped to grab something for dinner near Washington. Of course my gps thinks that I want to go to a mall to eat... So we decided to get out for a little to stretch our legs and grab something quick. Well we ended up at Tyson's corner center.... Hello mall! This mall was HUGE AND AMAZING. I have never seen anything like it. I would bet on atleast 5 famous people being there tonight. So naturally on our way out I told Dave we should drive around in the parking garage and find the most expensive cars. Haha!

So I would say this weekend was a success. Back to poopy diapers.

So long, VA
Hello, MD

-LS

99 bottles of beer on the wall...

... And the drive to VA has begun! (Chandler, here we come!)

Today has been insane. Running around all over to make sure that Lila has everything she needs while she is away at my moms. Lila has been a nut today. Before heading out the door, I saw her take three little crawls without face planting! Yay! Lila also has very big news! I felt inside of her mouth today and I feel tooth ridges! FINALLY.

So today I was in the mood the eat somewhat healthy. I found a recipe for zucchini and I had to try it. Zucchini pizza!

You just slice the zucchini in half, cook it in frying pan until it is cooked through and top with marinara sauce and mozz cheese.... You can ALMOST taste the bread ha!


It was very filling also.. I didn't need any sort of snack or anything for atleast 6 hours.

I will post again at the end of the weekend.. Hopefully there will be no drunk posting. #youngmomfunmom

Tequila, tequila, tequila!
-LS

Sorry..

I am so mad! I just realized that two of my posts never loaded onto my blog...So After this entry I am going to reload them. Just incase you are confused. This was around Sept 13-15.

Sorry!

-LS

What A Weekend!

I wrote this last night but for some reason it didn't work! Here ya go!

Wow. So much to say and not enough time. I have to watch Teresa Guidice's interview on Bravo. Yes, I am somewhat obsessed. (I started blog, took a break and came back several hours later).

I fed Lila a bottle around 7:30 (normal bedtime) and tried to put her down to sleep twice. Both times she woke up. The last time I left her to cry herself to sleep. She is screaming right now-sorry if I sound distracted :) ......wait. David just got up to comfort her. 

Lila has been going down to bed like normal...but then an hour or two later wakes up and is ready to party. Well mommy over here is NOT! I am not sure if she is trying to change her schedule, but it is getting old. It has been maybe a week since this has started. Maybe it has to do with all of the new accomplishments. Today she went from her belly, knees, to standing! YAY! She also was non-stop cooing! I heard Da Da several times today!!!

This past weekend was mine and David's 1st wedding anniversary. It is crazy how fast it went by. It is funny..I remember in high school and beginning of college talking to Dave about how exciting it will be when we could actually get engaged, married and have children. It is surreal that it all happened so quickly (oopyss!) I do not think David and I ever had a normal teenage relationship. Within a year of dating we knew that our relationship was different than most, and  that we would get married. We rarely fought/fight, we had never been on a "break" (never understood those) and our different personalities and hobby's worked well together. Don't get me wrong, we do have our moments of bickering and fighting...but that's love, right? I care to tell him when he is completely wrong. LOL.  We always joke saying that we have nothing in common. It is true. We are very different. The only thing that we have in common are our values and our child- HA! The important things.

We met at our high school (Baltimore Lutheran) and started dating the beginning of our sophomore year. David tells me that he remembers orientation day of Freshman year pointing me out to all of his friends-he even remembers what I was wearing. Impressive! 

Here is homecoming night where David first asked me out. 

David was 15 and I was 16.

This was us last year at our wedding :)

So let's start with Thursday and Friday night. 

I had made a baked ziti. Well when I boiled the ziti every noodle was stripped and broken. I was so confused. I did not have much time to think so I just made a box of rigatoni. It worked out just fine and was still very good.

1 box of rigatoni

1 lb italian sausage

1 jar of marinara

mozz cheese (eye balled it)

few shakes of red pepper (optional)

I also added some chopped onion (optional)

Preheat 350. Boil the pasta. Cut sausage in 1in slices. Cook sausage in pan until there is no pink. Combine cooked pasta, sausage, sauce, and mozz in mixing bowl and put into baking dish. Top with mozz cheese. Bake for 20 min or until bubbly. So good!

Then on Friday night we had Casey and Aidan (David's sister and boyfriend) and my friend Heather to carve pumpkins. They were coming over late at night after work, so I had to make something to snack on. Well I found round baked bread at the grocery store and remembered that I had pinned a yummy recipe for it on pinterest.

1lb round boule-style loaf of sourdough

sliced cheese (whatever you like, I used cheddar)

1/2 cup melted butter

2 large garlic cloves

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp italian seasoning

chopped parsley

marinara sauce

Preheat 375. Cut enough foil to fit around entire loaf. Cut bread into 1 in slices leaving about 1/4 inch of base of bread intact. Repeat in opposite direction to create cubed patch. Place bread on foil. Slice cheese and play into slots. In small bowl wisk together butter, garlic, and seasonings and gently pour onto bread. Make sure the mixture gets into slices. Wrap bread in foil. Bake for 15 min, then unwrap foil and increase temp to 425. Bake another 10 min. We dipped the bread in marinara. Scrumptious! 

Tonight I had made shrimp scampi. I had a lot of shrimp leftover from the dinner I made for our anniversary. I did not actually eat because I ate a late lunch with my friend, but the boys said it was good!

thin spaghetti
shrimp
green onion
red pepper
grape tomatoes
garlic
parsley
lemon
lemon zest
butter

This was so simple. I was not exactly sure how much I used of everything because I did not make a normal sized dinner. Boil pasta. Sauteed red pepper, garlic, and tomatoes. Added shrimp. Added butter and lemon several times to make a yummy sauce. Cooked until shrimp were nice and pink-ish! Added green onion, parsley and lemon zest to top it all off! Mix all together!



Sorry for the crazy amount of recipes tonight but my dinners have been turning out pretty good lately. Here's to the rest of my weekend....


David and I decided early on that we were not going to be celebrating our anniversary with gifts this year. It's not important this year and we wanted to make it memorable! He decided to surprise me. In the past, it has been hard for him to actually surprise me. I would somehow find out OR I would beg and beg to know until he told me. Well I had not idea what we were doing this time around. He told me to pack warm/heavy clothes. We started driving and I had no idea where he was taking me! 3 hours later we arrived. Where are we!!??? I still had no idea. He told me we were going to spend the weekend at Deep Creek! Well that was great! I was excited but still confused. I had heard of Deep Creek, but I did not know what we were going to do. I mean its a creek.....and it's fall. 

Eventually we got Lila all situated, unpacked, and changed for dinner. Lila was in a great mood all weekend so I was excited! We headed to a restaurant called The Dutch's! It was really good! The drive over was beautiful. We were passing the lake and all of the mountains and trees! Even though it was a week earlier than expected, all of the trees were turning already. So PRETTY!!

The next day we went to Swallow Falls Park. It was really nice! Cold! We had Lila all bundled up and ready in her carrier. We were able to see a big waterfall and walked the trail. It really was nice and Lila really enjoyed herself. She was so calm the entire time outside. We finished the day with going into a little town, walking around, and having lunch. All in all it was a great weekend!!!!

Hi, David and Lila! Can't even see the baby!

Thanks for the warm outfit, Oma and Poppy!

Anyone that knows David knows that he loves rock climbing and that baby...Great picture.

When we had gotten home Sunday, it was my turn for surprising David. I wanted to set up a little romantic dinner outside with candles and lights. It took a lot to pull it off because David had to stay inside to finish his homework. Thankfully my mom came over to give me some stuff I requested and was able to take Lila for a little bit so that I could focus on the dinner. Believe it or not, it is hard for me to make dinner and run after a newly crawling baby. I made two nice big steaks, asparagus, four heart shaped potatoes (cute, right?), and shrimp. My mom surprised us with champagne which was nice because I forgot about wine with such a crazy week!  

Even though we were in comfy, warm clothes (not very romantic), it was still really nice. Our one neighbor Susan even saw us through the trees on her walk and sang "Unforgettable" until she reached her house. It was very funny and very unforgettable. We ended our night with dancing to "My Endless Love". I consider that to be our wedding song even though it was not. We both love love love Frank Sinatra, so we picked "i've got you under my skin". However, we were obsessed with "My Endless Love" during that time and we would always sing the duet together. We also danced to it at our wedding because it's our favorite. 

THAT WAS LONG. Off to bed I go. What an amazing weekend. 

Love you, David.

See ya later!

-LS

aaaaaaaaaaah FALL!

Last week/weekend we went to dinner with my best friend's family, had a family reunion (David's side), David and I went out with friends, we visited my in-laws to watch the Ravens game and David, my brother and my mom's Fiance got confirmed at my church (St. Pauls Lutheran)! 

So much has happened in the last few days..!

• Lila stood up from kneeling
• She pulled herself up to sit from laying on her back (yay abs!)
• Her laugh is becoming more of a big girl laugh :(
• She is eating more whole foods!
• Trying to wave 
• handing objects to me
• Today she officially started crawling!!

I think that watching Lila grow is the coolest thing EVER! Everyday there is SOMETHING new. It is crazy that in one year that babies go from sleeping and eating to walking and talking (etc.)

Yesterday it really hit me that Lila is getting so smart. So every day before nap or bed, I rock her, give her a bottle and just chill with her. Most times it ends in us playing a little game. I try to steal her binky out of her mouth. She thinks it is hilarious. I take the binky, wave it around so that she can't grab it from me, and eventually give it back (acting like she "stole" it from me). ANYWAY...the little smarty pants is playing MY game. She hands ME the binky, doesn't let me take it, waves it around in front of my face and then puts it back into her mouth. She laughs at me like she invented the game or something! Well this is an ongoing game now. She did it again tonight. 

Today was very exciting for me because I LOVE OCTOBER! I love fall! Not too hot not too cold. Leggings, boots, scarves, jeans, sweaters! Fall just understands me and I understand Fall. I have always loved October, but I love it even more because David and I are celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary on Sunday! We also started dating in October 6 years ago (Weird!)

Along with the first day of October, we went to the pumpkin patch at Weber's Farm! Of course I love taking pictures so I quickly made a tutu for Lila and we went to pick up some pumpkins! 

Here we go!

Out front of our house!

Well that's all for now! Hopefully the next post will have our carved pumpkins!

XO

-LS

Please pray for me....

Update on the cleanse. I just started this morning. 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. 

Yes, I am used to unsweetened tea. I thought that I could handle anything. 

If I had to imagine what pee tasted like.....well. Yeah. 

God Bless me,

LS

Take THAT College!

Howdy! 

Life is mostly calm with the Steppe family. Lila has been pretty good lately-basically started crawling tonight. She was moving both legs back and forth and less of the penguin belly flop. 

Yesterday I was in Lila's room, sat her in the crib for literally a minute (tops!), went back in and she was on her knees and hands holding up on the top part of the crib. "Uhhhhhh.... No nooooo". 

This picture was from last night while Dave and I had "family time" in her room.

When did this happen and how can I make it stop??!

Since Monday Lila and I have been home all day everyday. I have kinda been in the "staying home" mood and I like when Lila is consistent with her schedule. So tonight I asked david after work if we could go to target to pick up a few things that I need for the week.. Well I have some new finds!

The other day my friend heather came over for our weekly gossip.. I mean visit. She told me about targets app called cartwheel. Basically you go on the app and find coupons for anything you want at target. Most of the stuff I needed was not on there this week but I still saved some money! It was so easy. By the end of shopping, the cashier scanned my phone and everything on sale popped up! 

David and I also had signed up for a target red card. This is NOT a credit card. Basically you save 5% off of your whole bill, get an extra 30 day return and free shipping online when you use the card. It's linked to your debit card so it comes right out of your account. Why not save money?!? 

So even though tonight we did not save that much on our small purchases, we still saved a couple bucks! 

Tonight I am starting to make my first cleanse.. Now before I tell you about it, don't make fun of me! I usually think cleanses are dumb. I do not understand them and why starve for days when you can eat and exercise?! Anyway. This cleanse you drink 60 oz of my concoction AND you can eat (thank god). I found this on Jillian Michael's pinterest and I thought it was interesting. So this cleanse is basically for a quick trim. You need to fit into that dress by the end of the week? Do it ( well we will see ). So really I do not have anything special to do for me to lose weight quickly, but I was thinking if I just drink this drink and lose a couple pounds, maybe it will motivate me to do more. I am really struggling with losing my baby weight! I now look at pictures (from when I thought I was fat back in high school) and wonder how I was so much skinnier?!?? This cleanse basically just takes away the extra water weight. With that said, you will gain the weight back if you don't do anything about it. 

This is the concoction:

Everyday for a week:

60oz of water

1 dandelion root tea bag (taget)

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp sugar free cranberry juice

I will start this tomorrow and tell you all how it is. I have heard it is bitter but I  used to drinking unsweetened iced tea everyday (thanks mom!) 

Dinner this week has been pretty great!

Monday I made a paleo diet recipe.

I also made some bow tie pasta to throw under it, especially for david because I was not sure if he would like it. He told me that it was good, but it was a little risky having the veggies cut so big. He would rather not know every veggie he was eating. I guess I will start to hide his fruits in veggies in dishes like a child -haha. 

Tuesday night we had spaghetti and meatballs- classic. Yum. 

1 lb groundbeef

1/2 cup Panko

1 egg

Parsley

Salt

Pepper

Wam bam!

I used left over angel hair from two nights before. 

Now tonight.... It was risky.

I had never made steak in my life! I was scared. I had gotten a good deal at shoprite for 3 sirloin steaks.. They were pretty big.

I sautéed onions, garlic and mushrooms in butttterrrrr. Then laid the steak on top to cook ( with salt and pepper and eventually threw some parsley in at end). I roasted some potatoes in the oven for about 10 min and then added them into the pan with steak. The soaked up all of the juices (so flipping good)!!!! I also made asparagus. Butter, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic and asparagus in a pan for a couple min. Delish! David said it was definitely a "man's dinner" ha! Not gonna tute my own horn... But yeah I did good this week-so far. I went from not knowing how to cook, to sucking it up and dealing with it. And now I love it! It is very exciting for me to find a recipe and experiment. I always watched my mom in the kitchen wondering how she just threw things into a pan and knowing that it would be good (never followed a recipe) and now I am starting to get confortable enough to throw my own twist to recipes. So cool!

Didn't have to study to figure out how to be a good mommy and wife! Take that college! 

Oh and here is my little sous chef!

Alright well I have to go switch out all of my summer clothes to fall now-YESSSSS! I love fall. Woo! 

Tootles!

-LS