Christmas Pictures

I made up my mind a long time ago that I would take my kids pictures myself instead of paying someone else. It's a long and crazy process, but I think I got some pretty good ones.



Batman birthday!

It's hard to believe it, but my baby boy turned 4 years old. He has become such a hilarious and curious kid. He asks questions all the time about anything he can think of. He always has an answer for any question you ask him, and the answers are usually pretty funny. So when we asked him what he wanted the theme for his birthday party to be we had no idea what the answer would be. Well, he chose Batman.

Adam, being the comic book enthusiast that he is, was all too excited when he heard his answer. So, between his nerdiness and my creativity, we gave him a pretty good party...I think. :)

(I've been making their cakes, but Clark was very adamant about getting this one.)

He's growing up so quickly!

Wedding!

Last month I got to witness a beautiful wedding between Alyssa and Austin. Well, I did more than witness it. I captured it forever in photos! I wanted nothing more than to get every detail...every moment and make it where the happy couple had photos they could cherish for the rest of their life. 





The Stay at Home Mom goes to work

Let me start off by saying that being a stay at home mom is the hardest job I have ever had. It is also the most rewarding. I just wish one of those rewards was money. That being said, I have chosen to get a job...that pays...in money. Actually, I chose to search for a job and by some miracle my now employer chose me.

 It took me a long time to find something that was right for me and my family. I desperately wanted to continue staying home but since that wasn't an option, I needed something that would let me be at home with my kids as much as possible. I had interview after interview for jobs that either needed me there 6 days a week, had completely random hours with different days every week, had horrible pay, or were just too far away. It was exhausting and disheartening.

Finally I came across a job post that sounded too good to be true. It was in an office, the pay was great, it was only 30 minutes away, I would only have to be away from the kids 3 days a week(one of which Adam would be home with them), and the babysitter's house was on the way there! I applied immediately, got a call for an interview, and the rest is pretty self explanatory.

I just finished my 2nd week and so far I'm pretty pleased. I enjoy what I do, the feedback I get from the customers tells me that it is a consistently good company, and everybody that I work with seems like good people. There are moments I'm missing with the kids and it puts a little more on Adam's plate but I think that this is the best thing for everybody.

Let's hope that everything keeps going smoothly. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Fall

Fall. Autumn. Whatever you call it, it's my favorite season of the year. I especially like the beginning of Fall when most everything is still green but there are little pieces of red, yellow, orange, and brown popping up all over the place.

(The creek in front of our home)

I love seeing that one tree that's changing it's style before every other tree.

Seeing that one uniquely orange leaf surrounded by it's uniformed green peers.

To me, it's a thing of real beauty.

(Beauty in our back yard)



My big guy

For me, this year has been full of big milestones for my kids. Clark got potty trained, Loralei turned 1, and now Clark has started Pre-K. Being a stay-at-home mom who spends pretty much every minute with her kids, I was a little hesitant toward him going...being away from me...having someone else teach him new things. Even though that overbearing/overprotective voice was in my head I know that it will be good for him to be away from me a little...listening to someone else teaching him. So I embraced it and let Clark participate in all the things we had to do to get ready.

We went to the store to get all of his supplies and he got to pick them all out. He picked out his own backpack and what clothes he would wear on his first day. I was constantly working how fun preschool was going to be into conversations to try to get him excited and ... it all worked!

Adam took the day off and we both walked him to his classroom. When we started saying goodbye Clark got confused and asked where we were going, but that was as far as it went. He went with his teacher to wash his hands and eat his breakfast and we walked out the door. He was such a strong guy but that didn't stop me from crying like a baby when we got to the car. I'm just glad I have 3 more years before Loralei starts!

He comes home talking about his new friends and the fun he has with his teachers. He's growing more and more everyday and I couldn't be more proud.





Divorce

I was watching reruns of Sex and the City (insert laugh here) and Charlotte's soon to be ex-mother-in-law was talking to her about marriage and divorce. I tried and failed to find the exact quote. It went something like this:

I come from a generation where marriage actually meant something. When you said the vows 'til death do us part' you actually meant it. Now it's 'til times get hard.

As much as I love Charlotte, I happen to agree with the old shrew. Marriage should not be something that can be so easily thrown away. Now I know there are certain things that merit divorce, abuse and infidelity being the main 2, but the number one reason listed on divorce papers is 'irreconcilable differences'. I think divorce has gotten so common that people enter their marriage with the thought "if it doesn't work out we can always get divorced". If you enter into it with doubt then that doubt is gonna pop into your head every time a problem comes about.
I guess my question is, do you really want to look back on your life and say
'I altered the life of every member of my family because times got hard and I just felt like giving up'?

Butterbeer

During my recent quest for anything Harry Potter, to fill the void left by the movie series ending, I found a recipe for butterbeer, a popular drink in the books and movies. Although this drink is made up, JK Rowling tasted the drink that Universal Studios is serving to the lucky visitors of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and gave it the thumbs up. Of course Universal is sitting their butts pretty tight on THAT recipe so this is the one that came closest. (With a little tweaking by yours truly!)

Ingredients

2 liters of cream soda

1 cup of whipped cream

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butterscotch syrup

4 tablespoons butter
Red and yellow food coloring (optional)

1/2 teaspoon rum(optional)

Instructions

Measure 1 cup butterscotch and butter in a microwave safe dish and microwave for 1 to 1 ½ minutes.

Let cool for 30 seconds.

Mix butterscotch mixture, cream soda, a few drops of  both food colorings, and rum extract. Mixture will fizz.

Mix 2 tablespoons butterscotch and 1 cup whipped cream until evenly mixed.

Pour cream soda mix into glass and top with a dollop of butterscotch whipped cream.

Enjoy!

My big girl

My baby big girl is growing up and it makes me sad. I love seeing the new things that she learns to do everyday but I miss that little baby she used to be. There's nothing to do but encourage her learning and soak in the rare moments when she just wants to cuddle and be my baby.

Ok. I'm done being sad! Let's look at her birthday party! :)

I made Loralei her own little smash cake.

And she went for it face first.

Because my little lady didn't like her hands being dirty.

Then we spent the rest of the night playing in the new toys she got for turning 1!

Postpartum Depression

My daughter is about to celebrate her first birthday and looking back at this past year I can't help but to compare it to my son's first year of life. Pretty much as soon as Clark was born I suffered postpartum depression. Not that I admitted it to myself let alone anyone else. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I felt even the thought of being alone with this beautiful baby would swallow me whole.

I had a long and hard labor with Clark. After 3 hours of pushing he finally came into the world and...he wasn't crying breathing. The silence was overwhelming. Thankfully it only took the doctors about 30 seconds to help him out.

I guess in the beginning I kept writing it off as the 'baby blues'. Like when I had asked my mama to stay with me for the first few days since my husband worked at night and when it got time for her to leave I was glued to the pillow crying my eyes out at the thought of being alone. She ended up staying a week.

Clark was born in winter so he was a sickly baby when he was young. Jaundice, asthma, colic, any kind of virus going around he would catch. That made him seem all the more fragile and every time he got sick it made me feel like an awful mother for not protecting him from it.

I had no confidence when he was younger. I wouldn't go anywhere by myself with him because I just knew something would happen and I wouldn't be able to handle it. I was so worried/depressed/ashamed that I couldn't appreciate the little moments that made up his first year. I finally admitted that it wasn't just the baby blues when he was about 9 months old and started taking anti-depressants. By the time it was his birthday I was a whole new woman mother and I am so thankful. I guess if I had to pick one word to describe how I felt Clark's first year it would be ashamed. For Loralei's first year it would be confident.

Her labor was short and easy. She has hardly ever gotten sick. She has asthma but she seems to have mostly grown out of it. As soon as we got home I was ready to go out with both kids and show her off to the world. I am in the floor playing all the time and I actually want to be around my kids. I don't feel the need to go out and spend time with other people because my family fulfills me. I guess I was confident because I knew that I could handle this whole 'parenting' thing. I'm not saying that every moment was a breeze but I have been cured of postpartum since before Clark was 2 and the thought of the woman I was 4 years ago having 2 kids is just scary.

Despite what some people think, postpartum depression is a real thing and I feel that it robbed me of his first year. The 'glass is half full' me feels that I have the rest of his life to make up for it and enjoy every minute of it!

http://postpartum.net/

Homemade Playdough

I recently found a recipe for homemade playdough on the website for Nick Jr. I also recently found out that my 3yr old son has an obsession with playdough. His imagination comes up with infamous possibilities for the little doughy blobs he makes. So...........here's the recipe.

Mix 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of hot water together in a large mixing bowl.

Add your choice of food coloring. (Clark's picked his favorite color.)

Mix until the color is evenly distributed.

(It looks like he's about to eat it. I promise he's not. He just likes to fill up cups with playdough.)

Enjoy!!!

P.S. This is a lot stickier than store bought playdough.

My first blog

I've never written a blog before. I never even really had a journal growing up. I had 5 siblings and an extremely close relatinship with my parents, so if I needed something out I just talked about it to one of the many people that was around. I still have that relationship with all of my family, but now we all have our own families and jobs so it's not always possible to get somebody on the phone. So I guess this blog is my way of having "someone" to talk to at all hours of the day because I have so very many things to talk about. I am a wife and a stay at home mother of 2 adorable kids. I also babysit kids at my house. If you don't have kids then you have no idea the amount of funny/frustrating/disasterous/beautiful things they can do.

Well, here goes blogging!