Liebster Award

I've been nominated for an award! Hooray, and thanks, Emily!

Liebster is a German word that means dearest or beloved and is an unofficial award given to up and coming bloggers with under 200 followers by fellow bloggers. It’s a way to pay it forward, so now it’s my turn to pay it forward.

Here are the basic rules for being nominated:

•  Share 11 random facts about yourself
•  Answer the 11 questions the blogger who nominated you asked
•  Create 11 questions to ask the 11 people you nominate
• Nominate 11 bloggers with under 200 followers and let them know they’ve been nominated

11 random facts: 

1. This blog post has taken three days so far :) (two days later, it's now taken five...) (now we're day 6...)

2. I hate taking showers, but I do anyway. I hate baths even more.

3. I'm probably one of a few women who not only doesn't mind pregnancy stretch marks, but I kinda like them. They remind me of when my babies were a part of me. :)

4. I have two kids and I still don't feel like a "real mom" most of the time/

5. I drink at least 100 ounces of water every day, usually more.

6. I take forever making small decisions sometimes, but I make big decisions really quickly. Example: my husband asked me to move in with him two months after we started dating. Sounded good to me!

7. I hate shopping. I will grocery shop with a list so I can be as quick as possible, and avoid malls & other retail stores at all costs.

8. Making a good meal that I hadn't planned in advance with ingredients already in my kitchen makes me super happy.

9. I check Twitter multiple times throughout the night (thanks to nursing Dash and needing to stay awake) and get frustrated that nothing happens at 2am worth tweeting about. Huffington Post retweeting the previous day's headlines is especially aggravating. 

10. I say the word "off" when I unplug my straightener or curling iron, to remind myself that I have, infact, turned it off (it helps when I invariably forget if I turned them off to remember saying the word). 

11. My wedding dress was given to me by a friend of mine. I tried it on and it fit & I decided that because I'd rather not bother dress shopping (see #7), it would do the trick just fine. So I didn't do any wedding dress shopping at all, and decided on the dress in about three minutes (see #6).

11 questions from Emily:

1. What do your favorite hobbies say about you? I love to cook, and I think this says that I'm like to eat well and enjoy taking care of my family. Currently, I read a lot of articles online, but no books - I think that says I only have 10 minutes here and there and no time to read. :) Sadly, most of my hobbies are on the backburner right now; hopefully in a couple years I'd have more interesting things to say here!

2. What are your top 3 favorite children’s books? A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle, From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg and all the Little House books, but I think my favorite was On The Banks of Plum Creek.

3. What are your top 3 favorite books that you’ve read recently? Sadly. I can't remember the last book I read. I read a great one called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society a couple months ago, on a friend's recommendation, but embarrassingly it's been a long time since I've had dedicated time to read books. This'll have to change this year.

4. What chore do you absolutely hate doing? Folding and putting away laundry. So I usually don't.

5. What super hero power would you want? I'd love to be able to be a fly on the wall anywhere at any time. What cool things could you learn if you could have that kind of spying powers? 

6. Who is your celebrity doppleganger? I used to get Reese Witherspoon a lot. Not so much lately!

7. Do you have a go to dance move? Shaking my booty, ya know. :)

8. What songs are included in the soundtrack of your life? Hmm.... How Long Will I Love You (The Waterboys), Sweet Thing (Van Morrison) , All I Want Is You (U2), Stay (Wasting Time) (Dave Matthews Band), Thunder Road (Springsteen), Tunnel Of Love (Springsteen). That's such a hard question.

9. What was one of the best parties that you’ve ever been to? My wedding!! Such a happy day. :)

10. When was the last time you were nervous? When my water broke in the early morning of April 14th. I wasn't scared-nervous, but extremely excited-nervous, like adrenaline rushing so hard I was shaking. I was extremely nervous (this time scare-nervous) when I agreed to an augmentation of labor with pitocin. I was also totally nervous on the morning of April 25th, when we thought we were going to get to take Dash home from the hospital but weren't sure yet. Every time my phone rang (I was at home), I would jump and start shaking, thinking it was the hospital.

11. Do you have a favorite picture? definitely not! but, here are a couple faves: 

our wedding!

our honeymoon in Provence

carefree days

Eleanor maternity shoot

baby Ellie

tiny dancer

beauty

I pinch myself that this is my family

the sweetest baby boy

11 Questions: 
1. What were you doing immediately before this? (my answer: eating breakast. before that, cleaning up projectile vomit for the tenth time today)
2. If you could live somewhere other than where you live, where would it be? (small town in the south of France)
3. What's a profession you secretly wish you could have? (midwife)
4. What was the last movie you saw in the theater? (Admissions - Paul Rudd & Tina Fey)
5. What's for dinner tonight? (NO idea!!)
6. Did you go to college? What was your major and would you have done it differently? (Yep, Whitman College, Economics, and yes - I loved Whitman, but would probably go to a school where I could get more vocational training - probably study nursing at UW and go directly to a Midwifery program after)
7. If you could eat one thing every day, what would it be? (lately, I'd say guacamole...)
8. Do you want to have any (more) kids? (Some days I don't believe my baby making days are over. Some days I swear they are. I guess it's in fate's hands for now, but we definitely have to wait at least 3-4 years before considering it!)
9. What is your favorite physical feature about yourself? (I used to say my boobs - they were great before kids. Now I'd say my eyes or lips. I also have great hair when I take time to do it properly!)
10. What's your favorite personality trait about yourself? (I'm pretty generous with my time. I'll go to great lengths to make you happy at the expense of what I'd like to do for myself). 
11. Beach or mountains? (Beach!)

Nominate other bloggers: Okay, here's where I'm going to do this differently. I'm bad at consistently reading other blogs with the exception of a few (Amelia! Kelli! Kim! Emily!) and don't get a whole lot of traffic myself, so if you read this epic post and feel so inclined, will you answer the 11 questions in the comments section? Could be kinda fun (and will hopefully take you less that 6 days!)