Friday, April 23, 2010

OMG! I'm a FREEBIE JUNKIE!!!

I have a problem... I am seriously addicted to freebies. I can't get enough of them! I feel like I spend most of my free time looking online for all things mom or baby that are free!

So far this week, I've gotten a free tote, breast cancer support sticker, photo magnet, photo flip book, photo strip, onion chopper, and cookie sheet! Wahoo!! And I have free photo prints waiting in my Snapfish and CVS photo sites!!

Check out these sites for freebies. I follow them on facebook, twitter, and their blogs:

Ilovefreethings.com
Freebies4mom

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Working mom of 2 under 2

The trials and tribulations...

Let me start by saying that I love being a mom, a wife, and a professional. What I don't love, is having to be all three at the same time. I've been working since I was 15 years old. When I was on maternity leave, I felt lost that I wasn't working. After I had Brock, I was excited to get back to work. It was easy for me to do it all.  Now that I had Lillian its a totally different story.

I have been having a very hard time balancing my roles of mom, wife, and professional. I can't keep my house clean and some nights I don't have energy to make dinner.  All the while, I have to change a million diapers a day, feed my two kids and my husband, oh yeah... and the damn dogs.  I can't handle the pressures of making my hours at work and meeting my expectations at home. Not that my husband has expectations. Its my own expectations. I *should* be able to maintain a clean house and all of that. But I just can't. I'm stressed out all day long from dealing with the kids... mostly Lillian, who seems to be colicky. Brock was never colicky so I didn't have to deal with this before. Then when Spike gets home, I think "ok, I'm finally going to get a break." Pfffft! Yeah right. He comes home from (albeit) a very long and hard day at work and he wants to take a bath. Ok, fine. Go ahead... but while he's in the bath, I'm still trying to wrap things up for work and I'm starting to stress out about dinner, because Brock goes to bed between 6 & 7 pm! Ugh! I don't know what the deal is. I know I am very lucky to have a job that allows me to work from home. But I'm not busy enough to  justify sending the kids to a babysitter because I'm not brining in enough money. So I keep them home with me, which totally limits the time I can make phone calls for work to when they are both napping. I would much rather be a full-time stay-at-home mom and not have to worry about brining home a paycheck.

We've talked about it and have decided that I will work for at least another 2 years so we can make sure to be free of credit card debt and have a nest egg. Then I can take a break and focus on being a mom. So for now, I will deal with things the way they are.

I have so much respect for working moms. Even more for single moms.  I don't know how you do it :-) Any tips would be appreciated!

Children of the Amazon...

I'm not joking when I tell you that my children are ginormous! The kids had their check-ups on Friday. Here are their stats:

Brock (18 months): 

Height - 34.5 in (95%)
Weight - 24lbs (50%)
Head size - 19.5 in (90%)

Lillian (10 weeks):

Height - 24 in (95%)
Weight - 12lbs (75%)
head size - 16.25 (93%)

Both kids are doing great!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

My little girl

I took these of Lillian on Sunday as well. Can't believe she's already 9 weeks old! Getting so big :-)


I love this last one too! Sleeping Beauty :-)

My BIG boy!

Is he seriously 18 months old!?! Was it only a year and a half ago that I wasn't a mommy? So crazy!

Here are some pictures I took of my lil guy on Sunday at the park.


The last one cracks me up! He was chasing a squirrel around and he got really upset that the squirrel ran up into the tree!