It's Football Season!

It's our favorite time of year! FOOTBALL SEASON! 

I've always loved football, even as a kid! Football was never big in my house growing up, my dad and brother were never into any sports really but I was a tomboy and played different sports with all the neighborhood boys (didn't have any girls nearby) and always loved football. I even remember asking my dad if iI could play and he told me no lol. As a kid my "team" was the Miami Dolphins because dolphins were my favorite animal but once I had my first college football experience I no longer cared about the NFL or the dolphins. I probably went to almost every home football game since my freshman year at UCF and actually met my husband at an away UCF bowl game. UCF's team isn't the greatest, although they are getting much better but it's the just experience that drew me in! Tailgating (drinking, grilling, and games!) is just sooo much fun and then cheering in your team to a hopeful win, ahh it's just so much fun! Thursday night was UCF's first game of the season (opening day for all college football although most games are on Saturdays) and it was a home game! I was a little disappointed I couldn't tailgate for hours like usual because I had to work but I got there with a little over an hour before the game started and had a beer some chips and soaked in all the activity! The game was great, we won, which always makes it even more fun! Since it was a night (7pm) game we decided not to take EM since she'd be ready to sleep and it wouldn't really work for her but she did wear her gameday colors! We just met up with our usual crew "TEAM TAILGATE" (hubby and some of our friends took the day off and enjoyed it more than me, jealous!!) I was definitely impressed with the turnout, unfortunately more people (students mostly) tailgate then attend the games because we haven't been the best performing, hoping one day we'll draw more people to the games as we continue to improve.

Now, ever since I found my love of College Football I never paid any attention to Pro Football. I'd watch the Super Bowl just because it was the Super Bowl and the commercials/half time show were fun to watch plus Super Bowl parties were always a good time! G on the other hand is a HUGE NFL fan as well, The Philadelphia Eagles are his team and he watches all the games and plays in several fantasy football leagues each season. As an attempt to get us girls more into NFL, our friends of "Team Tailgate" decided to start a Fantasy League. And for some reason I decided to join another league in our new neighborhood... I have no idea anything about any of the players or teams so this should be interesting, hoping to maybe have some beginners luck since between the two leagues I have $75 riding on them! How do my teams look? (Screen shots from 2 different aps and yes I know mom missing a player on one team) 

Team: Woo Girls (we all have HIMYM references)

Team: Bad News Beers

 

Kids Book Exchange

I had heard of these "kids book exchanges" in the past, but never participated in any but this week I received a letter in the mail (yes, real snail mail!) from one of my friends who actually just had her little girl a few days ago, and figured eh, might as well give it a shot. So I ordered the book for the person on the top of the note as directed - for a 2 year old girl (from amazon prime so I didn't have to pay shipping, was like $4 for a cute board book) and then filled out the letter to make copies and send out and whoops I forgot to make copies of the blank letter to send with it.. So off to google I went and came across a much cuter letter with the same instructions and concept (found it on www.happyhomemaker.me) and had to modify it a little since it was a PDF and I wanted to type ,y info vs hand write it since I figured I'd email mine out instead of snail mail. Then came time to decide who I should send it to. I belong to a Facebook group which I joined when I was pregnant with EM and we all  were originally due in December 2012 (some of us had out babies earlier and some later but we stayed together and I enjoy chatting with these ladies often) so I asked the group who would be interested in participating and sent my letter off! I'm pretty sure these ladies will at least send out their letters (so my friend's little girl will be getting some books!) and HOPEFULLY the people they send their letters to will participate so EM will get some more books (she's got quite an extensive collection already but you can never have too many books!) and if not I'm only out $4! Here is a picture of the letter so you all can see what I'm talking about, It's a fun little concept (especially nowadays with Amazon and email) which reminds me of back in the day chain letters :) 

9 Months Photo Shoot

We just got EM's 9 month photos back from the Photographer! She does an incredible job! I had a few friends use her in the past and after trying to book her for EM's 3 month photos and realizing how popular she is (we ended up using Portrait innovations, which did a good job for a studio with no editing) we booked her 6 month photos right at 3 months and then each session we always book the next! Can't wait for her 1st Birthday smash cake session! If you live in central Florida and want to get pics taken of your babies, family, anything really, check out brianalugophotography.zenfolio.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Brianalugophotography Here are a few of my favorites (one from each outfit backdrop) from this shoot: 

 

My all time favorite from this shoot :)

We had to distract her with a balloon this time around

It's football season so we had to get some of our football team outfits! I made the eagles one myself :)

Citrus Lane - August 2013 Review #2

So after receiving our August Box and thinking it was too old for EM, I wrote to Citrus Lane and told them I was disappointed and thought maybe I received the wrong box and described the items in it. It took them a fee days to respond, but they did and I was rather pleased with their customer service! They believe she was probably sent the wrong box and quickly sent another. I received it yesterday and definitely thought this was way more her speed!

As usual, packaged very nicely with a great information card with coupon codes if you like the items and want to order more.

Clean Well  All-Natural Hand Sanitizing Wipes – Orange Vanilla Scent (40 Wipe Canister): Same item as in first box, can always use more wipes!  ($5.50)

Cleo's Color Book by Barefoot Books: as previously mentioned, we loved Barefoot Books because they are a good quality board books that are great for babies that chew everything! A good book on colors and rhyming which always makes them more fun to read! ($6.99)

Earthworms from BeginAgain: this is a great wooden toy that EM will definitely love to play with :) ($11.00)

Socks from iPlay: we actually received these same socks for her a few months ago in a smaller size, however she never worethem because she doesn't wear socks - it's too hot in Florida right now! However these ones will fit her once it cools down (and actually she's so petite with little feet, the other pair we have will still probably fit her too). I would never buy organic socks, I don't think it's necessary, especially at the price,  but they are very soft and she will wear the, eventually. ($5.00)

Little Yums Organic Teething Wafers (spinach, apple, & kale) by Plum Organics: we always like to try new snack type items for EM, she seems to like anything and everything so I bet she'll like these too! ($0.75)

And just like the 1st box, we got the "free" outfit from Fabkids. So now I have two free outfits and I signed up with two different email addresses and a prepaid Visa card (in case canceling is a hassle and takes longer than expected, I don't want to get suckered into paying $39.95 for an outfit!) so I have two outfits coming, a lot of the outfits were sold out by the time I looked and I honestly didn't think they were all that cute, definitely not for $40, but for $4.95 each (shipping) - to get a 3 piece outfit (top, bottom, and hair accessory) we'll take them! She won't be able to wear them for probably a year or two since the smallest sizes they have is 2t. I didn't like that you couldn't piece together individual item ps for your free outfit as some of them individual items were cuter than the set outfits already created. Out of the options that weren't sold out, these were definitely the cutest  (IMO), In the new box, on the information card, they acknowledged it'd be an outfit for the future! Which to me, confirms we did receive the wrong box initially since it didn't acknowledge that the outfit would be too big for now. (Like before, not including this is the estimated value since it requires you to spend money to receive item). 

Here are the two outfits we ordered: 

Total estimated value of box: $29.24 (not including shipping)

Total Cost of box: $25.00 (free shipping)

Overall impression: much happier than the wrong aged box, since I don't really buy into all the organic thing, I don't appreciate it as much because I wouldn't actually spend the money on those type of items in my own, BUT everything in this box will be used and as much as I don't like having to sign up for a free outfit and remember to cancel my subscription and lay shipping, getting two complete outfits for less than $10 is a great value! 

Once I get onto my MacBook (posting from iPad) I'll add in the links for the items.

If you are interested in signing up for Citrus Lane… use my referral link and get $10/off your first box (and I’ll get a $10 credit as well): https://www.citruslane.com/invitedby/citrus.lane.607957

Remember, you can cancel at any time, so your first box would only be $15, not too shabby!

Vero Beach Weekend

Well I'm already slacking on updating the blog! I've been formulating posts in my mind but haven't had the time to sit and type them up, luckily now I do :) 

So last weekend was a good friend of ours 30th birthday and her husband reserved at beach house at Disney's Vero Beach Resort for us to celebrate for the weekend! 

The resort was great, definitely could see us coming back with EM in the future, when she's a little more mobile and could enjoy the splash park and water slide. EM stayed with my parents for the weekend since it wasn't really the environment for little ones to be (we are the first of this group of friends to have a baby). We had a great time (although G was suffering from a sinus infection, in between naps he was a good sport and joined in on some of the fun). If you are looking for a fun adult game to play, Cards against Humanity is the one! We played for hours each night and laughed out asses out the whole time! 

A few pictures from the weekend (I'm posting from my iPad and haven't figure out how to resize them, so I apologize for the large size)

 

The view from our back porch on Friday night 

The guys hanging out on the balcony while us girls laid on the beach

The birthday girl at midnight!

The water slide that us big kids enjoyed many times on Saturday!

The splash park that EM will enjoy one day 

My beach drink of choice :)

Beautiful view!

And EM had a great time with Grandma and Paca and cousins too! (Although Paca and cousin Mason didn't make any of the pics) 

She tried lots of new foods this weekend and loved them all!

Sitting on Grandma's lap with her girl cousins!

The cousins were fighting over who would push her on the walk! 

Monthly Subscription Boxes - Citrus Lane August Box Review

Back when I first had EM, a friend of mine gave me a 3 month subscription to Bluum. So I signed up for it. Every month for 3 months I received a box of random things that pertained to the current age and gender of my baby (newborn at the time) and usually a little something for me too. I thought it was a great idea but wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue my subscription or not I had never heard of “Subscription Boxes” before and decided to do a little research. Turns out there are Subscription Boxes for everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING! (babies, adult, pets, food, underwear, make-up, etc – you know it, they probably have a box for it). While doing my research I found that there are quite a few people who do reviews on their received boxes which helped me to decide if I wanted to continue with Bluum or switch it up. At the time, Bluum was switching up from smaller (cheaper) boxes to larger (more expensive) boxes so no one had any experience with the larger boxes yet so I decided I would switch to something different. After looking at a ton of reviews and asking around in my Mommy Group on Facebook, I decided on Citrus Lane. So for the past 6 months or so I’ve been getting a monthly Citrus Lane Box which is tailored to a girl at her age. Of course with babies, they all grow and learn things at different ages, so some of the items had been a little advanced for her at first, but she’s grown into them. For the most part I’ve been very happy with them and have discovered quite a few new things and brands that I probably otherwise would never have found. They do tend to stick to a lot of Organic and Natural items, which is nice, although I probably wouldn’t buy them myself. EM’s favorite teether and bedtime toy is from a Citrus Lane Box, and by looking at it, I definitely would never have purchased it for her. However, it seemed like none of the reviews on Citrus Lane were ever for my age (baby) boxes; the people who received them always had them for older children (toddler+), so I figured with my latest box, I’d start blogging each month after I receive it so if anyone out there is interested in what it would be like for a baby, now they’ll know! I do plan on subscribing to one more baby box, I just haven’t decided which one yet. There are so many out there and I definitely could see how someone could easily get addicted to many of them.

Initially I wasn’t sure if I would like it/think it was worth the money, so I have a monthly/cancel at any time subscription, but I’m thinking I might buy a 6 Month subscription to save some money if I plan to continue with it.  So here is my first review!

I received my box yesterday, Tuesday. This is what I got in my 9 Month Old, Baby Girl Box and the approximate retail value I found for each item from their specific website (or Amazon if I couldn’t find it). Sometimes I have to do some math because the sizes aren’t quite the same, hence why they are approximate values J

At first glance (they are always packaged so nicely!) it looked like a good one! They also always include an information card with descriptions of the items and usually coupon codes to buy additional items at a discount if you like them!

Clean Well  All-Natural Hand Sanitizing Wipes – Orange Vanilla Scent (40 Wipe Canister): I probably wouldn’t buy these on a regular basis, they are kind of expensive and my regular wipes would work just fine, but I will definitely use these! If you have a small infant/child you should probably invest in cleaning wipe stock! You use SO MANY every single day.  ($5.50)

Crocodile Creek 5″ Playground Ball At first I thought EM may be too young for this, it reminded me of a smaller version of the type of balls we used to use for kickball in Elementary School, but as soon as I showed it to EM she smiled, grabbed it and started to play with it (and then cried every time she rolled it away from her and she couldn’t get it lol)  It looks like a great quality – let’s just hope the pups don’t destroy it! ($7.99)

as you can see, EM loves it!

Octopus Opposites from Barefoot Books I think this is the 2nd or third Barefoot Book that we’ve received so far. They are a nice waulity board book.  It is perfect for us, because if they were regular pages, EM would eat them. Not that she won’t try to eat this book, but at least it won’t get ruined when she tries. EM loves when we read to her, so whereas she might not “get” the book just yet, she enjoys getting read to and will eventually be able to read it herself in the years to come. They also included a book mark with a 20% off coupon code. ($7.19)

Ouchies Adhesive Bandages (20 Count) These are adorable band aids, and once EM is older and needs a band aid I’m sure she’ll love them. I assume Olivia is a character kids like, we haven’t gotten into to many characters yet. I also have never bought kid themed band aids before but I’d be shocked if you couldn’t find some cheaper than these ones, $5 for 20 seems pretty steep! These will definitely get used at some point though! ($4.96)

BabyTime Mighty Shield by Episencial (0.5 oz) This is bug repellent lotion. A small travel size is nice since we won’t really need it too often. EM goes to bed before the bugs really come out, but if for some reason we are out and about and it’s buggy, it’ll be nice to have handy in her diaper bag. ($1.76)

Fabkids Free Outfit OK, this is a card with a special coupon code on it for a free outfit from FabKids.com (you may have heard of the adult version JustFab.com) The concept is great, free 3 pcs outfit valued at $39.95 however I would never actually buy a full price $40 outfit for EM at this age, especially for something similar to what I could get much cheaper elsewhere. Since they only charge you around$5 for shipping, it’s worth it. The catch, it automatically signs you up for their monthly service to get one outfit for $39.95/month once you redeem your free outfit, with the option to cancel at any time. For me, this is no problem, I’ll put a note on my calendar and cancel right away (plus will use a pre-paid credit card JUST in case they try to charge it, there won’t be any money left on it). However I’m sure many others will forget to cancel and get stuck with this charge each month. The other problem I had with this box addition is the smallest size clothing they have will NOT fit a 9 month old. It says size “2” – I assume that’s 2T so I’ll be picking out an outfit she can’t wear for over a year or more. I’m not counting this in my “total value” of the box since it’s not really an item since you have to spend money to use it.

Bowling Pin Cutouts - I assume this goes along with the ball, and for a 4 year old, this would probably be great, but 2 year olds can’t even really color yet, you think my 9 month old is going to do anything but eat crayons? They are on card stock and can be folded to stand up. Not even sure what to value this at, so leaving it at nothing.

Total estimated Value: $28.14 (not including shipping)

Cost: $25.00 (free shipping)

Overall Impression: Eh, it was alright. It definitely isn't the most valuable box to date either. Usually I find the boxes are valued around $35. I think it was a little over-aged for Miss EM and we will get use out of all the items eventually; however I’m a little disappointed overall that it wasn’t very age specific. Several of the other blogs that I read for older children got almost the same items, so it doesn’t look like they put a lot of thought into this one for age groups. Although, this is probably the first box I feel that way about, so I will continue my subscriptions. I wish I would have reviewed some of my previous boxes that we loved so you could see the full potential of Citrus Lane!

If you are interested in signing up for Citrus Lane… use my referral link and get $10/off your first box (and I’ll get a $10 credit as well): https://www.citruslane.com/invitedby/citrus.lane.607957

Remember, you can cancel at any time, so your first box would only be $15, not too shabby!

Running Season!

Well G and I went a little overboard this running season (my definition of the running season starts in August and ends in April – even though we do sometimes participate in races in the “off season”) and signed up for a ton of races, including the Track Shack Running Series (Distance Dare Fanatics)! We’ll be missing one of the Series races due to a planned Philly vacation, but it was still cheaper to sign up for the series than to do all the other races individually This was all before I knew I was going to be having my foot surgery in July, if I would have known that, I probably wouldn’t have signed up for some of the fall races, but since they are all non-refundable, I’ll participate it them the best I can, even if that means just slowly walking!

Our Race Schedule for this Running Season is as follows:

August 17, 2013: Celebration of Running 5k (Track Shack Running Series)

October 5, 2013: Tower of Terror 10-Miler

October 13, 2013: U Can Finish 5 Miler & 2 Mile (Track Shack Running Series, Distance Dare = 2 races in same day)

November 2, 2013: Give Kids the World Gingerbread Run 5K

December 1, 2013: Space Coast Half Marathon

January 9, 2014: Disney World Fun Run 5k (G Only)*

January 10, 2014: Walt Disney World 10k

January 11, 2014: Walt Disney World Half Marathon (G Only)*

January 12, 2014: Walt Disney World Marathon (G Only)*

January 25, 2014: Seasons 52 Park Ave 5.2k (Track Shack Running Series)

February 15, 2014: Run Around the Pines 5k (Track Shack Running Series)

March 15, 2014: Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliffe Winter Park Road Race 10k and 2 mile (Track Shack Running Series, Distance Dare = 2 races in same day)

*G is participating in the Dopey Challenge this year, which includes a 5k, 10k, Half and Whole Marathon in 4 days… yes, you can say he is pretty Dopey, and his best friend Ryan is just as Dopey as he is and signed up with him!

With that said, you can see we’ll be very busy staying active in addition to our already busy schedules! Until I can fully run again, I’ll be able to take EM on walks to “train” – not sure that’ll be much help for that 10 miler in October, but it’s better than nothing and she loves going for walks!

So we kicked off the running season on Saturday with our First Race! G ran it and I pushed EM in her stroller. It was a nice morning temperature wise, but it was very humid, made me almost glad I was walking.

The race started and ended at the Orlando Science Center and went around the streets nearby. I chatted with some other walkers along the way, one who had a baby 6 weeks ago and one who was due in November, it was very enjoyable. I definitely am not used to being that close to the end of the pack of participants, but final stats show I finished 2143 out of 2162 with a total time of 1:01:01. G finished the race in 39:56 and then came back and walked the rest with me. 

We had to wake EM up since we had to leave before she normally wakes up

she looked so peaceful sleeping 

EM and I prepping for the race, gotta have our race fuel, Cheerios!

G and his Race Bling

My Finisher's Medal and Race Bib

this is just a screenshot from the professional's website, 
so the quality isn't the greatest, but a cute before the race pic


and our Finisher's Certificates

Welcome to What the Schneck - the Blog

Well, after months of contemplating “what would I write about” I decided to take the plunge and start my own blog. I really enjoy reading other people’s blogs on random things (especially about their growing kids), so figured I’d start one and just go with it and maybe someone will enjoy reading about me, my life, my family, and whatever else I feel like talking about. For any first timers, check the "about me" section to learn a little bit more about me :)

Some of my favorite blogs that I read are:

http://www.pearlsofsouth.blogspot.com

http://www.ramblingsofasuburbanmom.com

http://www.babyaandmamaj.blogspot.com

http://www.complicatedwife.blogspot.com

I'm sure there are others, but those are the first few that I've recently read, or tried to read, really wish that complicated wife would update hers haha