New York Trip!

So I didn't have a chance to blog about my trip to New York much other than to let you all know about the brutal drive. It was so amazing to get to spend time with the step family and my dad. It is so hard having my family literally scattered across the North East! My dad moved to New York and married my step mom about 5 years ago (it's almost their 4 year anni!) and since then I haven't been able to get up there as much as I like. It's very hard because it's a constant balancing act between going to Maryland to see my Gram, cousins, aunts and uncles in Maryland and getting up to New York to see my dad. The other problem is that traveling Upstate gets to be a road hazard roughly November- mid- March. (again see my brutal drive post). 

Needless to say, I got some much needed family time and Harper finally got to meet her 2 uncles and see her Grandma Karin, Grandpa and Aunt Lydia again. We went out to eat, watched lots of movies (Dallas Buyers Club is all it was cracked up to be!) talked, and I even went to a sports bar to watch Cuse LOSE to Duke! It was a great trip. Way, way, way too short, but much needed. Today, I'm sitting here missing my dad and wishing I could be up in New York, or better yet, somewhere warm with my whole family together!! Here are some pics I had my step sister send me! (I was horrible about taking pictures!) 

Grandpa and Harper!

Aunt Lydia and Harper!

It's exhausting being so cute!

The trip was perfect and I can't wait to head back up!!! Miss you all Cross- Smith family!

#thestruggleisreal LENT

 I'm going to break from my life and talk about Lent. Being Catholic, I'm given the opportunity to give up something every year to reflect on the sacrifices Jesus made for me and everyone else in the world. I kind of love the Lenten Season. As much as I struggle with giving up something, I do truly strive to become a better person and reflect. I encourage all my sweet readers to do the same this Lenten Season. After all, Jesus died for us, don't we owe some reflection over the magnitude of that sacrifice?! Soap box over. Here's what I plan to do this Lent!! 

That's right people, this very happy carnivore

is becoming a vegetarian  actually I will still 

eat seafood!

Since you don't have to give up anything for Lent

I've decided to stop taking my body for granted

and start hitting the gym! It's time to lose this

baby weight!!

And finally I'm going to start going to church

every Sunday. There really isn't a reason why

I can't go, I just get lazy. 

I hope you all have an amazing Lenten Season. In the mean time today is Mardi Gras. Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone! Load up on what you're giving up and have a blast doing it! My sis is in Nola right now living it up!!! For everyone else, have fun at work and remember...

Lassiez les bons temps rouler!

"Go See The Mardi Gras"

#tbt

I've gotta be completely honest... I LOVE #throwbackthursday on Instagram. It's been sweeping social media for a while now and I, like most IG users, love to plow through old, embarrassing family pictures to find ones to post. So today, I give you #tbt blog edition! I hope you love these pictures as much as I do! 

This is me with my Pop when I was 

about 3 weeks old. It was his birthday.

I miss him every day.

9 weeks pregnant! Sweet Girl was just a tiny

peanut!

My main lady, my Gram. She's my world,

my bff, and I couldn't be luckier. She

really is the best.

This was me when I was 16. It's such an embarrassing

picture but it cracks me up. I'm holding my cousin, Peter,

not my baby.

Pop with my cousin Danny and me... rocking 

that mullet

My dad and his girls! #httr

Hubs and I on our anniversary trip to Gatlinburg last year.

30 weeks pregnant!!

Love this lady so much! This was me 34 weeks

pregnant... quite a change from the above pic.

I figured I'll make every Thursday on the blog a #tbt. It's so much fun to look through old pictures and remember what you were doing in them or seeing the people you love and miss! Happy #tbt you guys!

New York Road Trip Recap: My Daughter Pooped EVERYWHERE

So sorry for the week vacation I took! It was pretty nice and nothing too exciting has happened. I figured I'll let you all know about my New York trip. While it was amazing to see my dad, step mom and step sibs, the trip was BRUTAL. If anyone has ever driven a long road trip with a baby would totally understand. What should have been a 9 hour road trip took us 12 on the way up and 11 on the way back. My sweet Harper decided to serenade my sis and I with lovely screams, tantrums, and adorable noises and poops. It was awesome.  Here's the recap of the road trip:

We left on Wednesday night after work and decided to stop half way to give Harper a break from sitting in the car for too long. My dad called and told us to stop in Columbus, OH because it wouldn't be worth the drive to Ashtabula (a booming metropolis on the Erie, PA border) because he had to work the next day and the weather would be perfect for us. We stopped in Columbus for Harper's first hotel stay. She screamed until midnight, we woke up around 8... didn't leave until 9:30 and this was a view of our drive FROM COLUMBUS TO ROCHESTER

Isn't the sunshine beautiful?

It poured all the way through Ohio, Pennsylvania and all the way up to Buffalo where the weather promptly switched to snow. FYI to all you who plan to travel to NY... the potholes are horrible and rocks will constantly shoot at your windshield. No lie... they come at them like bugs do in the South. It's nuts. From Columbus to Rochester the drive should have lasted 6 hours. It took 9. By the time we got to my dad's, Harper was over the trip and letting us know by screaming and Liza and I were about to flip the ish out. 

Once in the ROC we had an amazing time. Dad got to see Harper and get some time with her while Liza and I saw some of her friends from U of R Nursing School. My step brothers got to meet Harper and my step sister and step mom got to play with her. We went to an amazing wing place called Jeremiah's  (shout out) and another restaurant whose name I have forgotten. But Harper sat in a big girl chair there and rolled around on their sheep's wool benches! We loved it. 

Harper and Grandpa on our last night.

The trip was very much needed but on Saturday night I started to get the feeling of doom. There was a drive back... we had to do it... it would be an all day adventure. F. I should have known this one would be a memorable trip when I somehow over slept an hour and missed our alarm. Then once we got Harper into the car the screaming promptly started 1 HOUR into the 11 HOUR drive. We pulled over checked the necessities and lifted her out of her car seat. She started laughing and smiling. Little A-hole (a term of endearment, I promise) just wanted to get out. I saw where this was going and it wasn't pretty. 

On the upside of this drive, I got my Popeye's for lunch (we don't have them in Lex and it was a big deal) and the weather was amazing. Harper started getting fussy so we pulled over for a coffee break and got her out and snuggled her up. Took this precious picture:

Isn't her Lloyd Christmas cut precious?

and continued on our way. We took this picture outside of Columbus towards Cincinnati. From this point on Harper would wake up, scream, fall back asleep, scream, eat, toot and fall back asleep. It was a routine but we were in the home stretch. I saw the light at the end of road trip hell's tunnel. It was bright. We hit Northern Kentucky and all types of things started to happen. It was snowing, traffic was building up and Harper was getting REALLY unhappy. Once we hit Grant County (45 miles outside of Lexington, 30 minutes left to drive) Harper had a loud toot. Liza started laughing and I just smiled until I heard Liza say "Oh my God, she just had a blow out!" Talk about understatement of the century. My little Asshole wanted to get out of her car seat so bad she literally shit it (I'm sorry but there is no cute way to talk about what she did) There was poop everywhere and the gross gas station I had to pull off at could not accommodate the mess I had. 

See that smug face? That's why she's my Asshole. 

We changed her up to the best of our ability and rushed home to Lexington where I promptly put Hubs on daddy duty for the rest of the night. It was a trip to be remembered.

I don't ever want anyone to think I'm taking my amazing daughter for granted, because I'm not. I would rather have this mess to clean up 459837432498172049 times a day than not have her. But these stories are funny and part of my life so I enjoy sharing them with the humor I chose to look at my life with! 

I should have known what she had in store when she gave 

me this look at the beginning of the road trip. 

Family Photo Shoot!

So, Harper Maryann is turning 6 months old tomorrow. I know, huge milestone! ;) But realistically, I try to take a picture of her every day and I have documented every week of her life thus far. Of course we also do the monthly stickers, too! To say this kid knows that when a phone or camera is pointed at her she should do something cute is an understatement. Baby model in training. I decided for her 6 month birthday we should have some professional pictures done to commemorate the big day! I contacted my friend Jenny and she did the most amazing job! So here are a few of my favorites of my Boo Bear, hubs and me! I just adore my little family! 

I don't think Jenny could have done a more perfect job! Thank you so much for your amazing work and help! 

I'm in a New York State of Mind

Rochester that is... This is the first road trip Harper and I will be making sans Hubs. Wish me/ us luck. We're going to see my dad, step mom and step sibs in good ol' Rochester, NY. You all... Upstate doesn't even begin to explain it. I'm literally flirting with the Canadian border this weekend. My sis and I will once again be road trip buddies and she'll be my co-pilot/ Harper entertainer while I schlep us up to NY in the Accord. This will be a sight to see. On the upside, I get to see my dad, Harper gets to see her grandparents. I get to escape Lexington for a little and my sis will get to dance to JT in Buffalo Saturday night! 

This is my dad with Harper at Christmas. She is 

very distracted by his loud shirt. 

My sis and Harper. Road Trip buddies.

I think the thing I'm most excited about is the actual trip. One thing you should know about me is that I am a total hotel hoe. I love to sleep at hotels, inns, motels not really but give this girl a night at the Holiday Inn and I will be ridiculously excited. We are stopping half way tomorrow to stay at a hotel and make the 10 hour trip a little easier. I'm also pumped to road trip with Sis because we have a set group of songs we sing together. American Idol season 6000 winners. As exhausting as this trip is going to be, I couldn't be more excited to go. I am horrible about getting up to NY to see my dad as I often opt to go to Maryland to see my family up there any chance I have (post coming up soon about them). Family really is my life. If I could have us all in one place, I would. It's a pain in the ass having everyone spread out!!

Sorry this post was so boring! I can't lie, I did this one for my own selfish purposes more than anything else. I promise to write a good story about me for you all to laugh at. I'll leave you with this Katie Blunder: I thought giraffes were 48 feet tall. Have a great rest of the week. I won't be able to blog until I'm back!

F U February.

So let's talk about this month. Yes we are 13 days in and it's already a month I'd like to erase off the face of the earth. Don't get me wrong, great things happen daily in my life with Harper and Hubs but to be honest, and that's what this blog is for, sometimes the bad is just shit  poop... I have a horrible mouth. So here is the list I sent my closest friends a couple days ago:

We're only 12 days into this shitty month and I have a list accumulating. I'm going to start it today and finish it on the 28th. Buckle up, ladies. 

1. MF'in scholarship days... I hate these. I hate coming in early after roughly 4 hours of sleep. One day I will just flip out.  

2. $400 electric bill... my house is 1200 square feet and is roughly 67 degrees. WTF am I paying to heat?!

3.I'm sick of pumping. I honestly think dairy cows get milked less than I do. #moo

4. Hubs got sick. 

5. I haven't had more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep in 3 weeks. I want to punch people on the reg now. Great.

6. Morning people. If you speak to me before I speak to you and it's before 9 am...I'm going to flip out.

7. Harper has RSV. I can't really make any snarky comments about this. I even bought some Swedish contraption that makes me suck the snot right out of her nose. It works like a charm but it's disgusting. 

8. It's still frigid. It was 60 degrees in Sochi today. It's 17 in Lexington. 

9. Bruce Springsteen is coming to Cincinnati in April. Hubby says we can't "waste" money to go see him. HOW IS IT WASTING MONEY TO SEE BRUCE!?!!?! 

10. I was supposed to go to New York next Thursday to see my dad and step family. Probably won't happen with a sick baby. 

11. Semen Buttface (this is an inside joke, but I'm sure everyone can find the humor in this.)

12. Update on sleep: I got 3 full hours last night. Combined. I love my daughter but I think she may be torturing me for secrets. I have none. 

I only have a list of 11 so far. I need wine. Let's start a petition for the caf to serve wine. Happy Hump Day. 

So there you have it folks, my life in a nutshell this month. I love my good days but I swear if I could get an IV drip of some straight vodka  Riesling right about now, I wouldn't complain. I hope your month is shaping up a lot better!