Christmas if Coming

So, Christmas is coming right around the corner and the excitement of the holidays and spending time with friends and family is wonderful and a bit overwhelming all at the same time.  The vacation that Mike is taking from work will (fingers crossed) prove to be a time for me to get some much overdue blogging done, along with the mass amounts of housework and rest that I sometimes require.

I do apologize to those few but loyal blog stalkers that there has not been a post since September, but there are more to come!  With that, I will let the suspense drive you insane until I post again.  Muhahahahahahahaha...

Out With The Old, In With The New...

So, we finally gave in and replaced the Grand Am (Blitzen as we called it). Fearing that it may not make it through another winter and not wanting to pay to fix it up at this point, we figured it was time.

Blitzen when we bought it February, 2004.

As old as Blitzen was, it was a great car. It was surprising how hard it was to trade it in. After owning it for nearly 10 years, it has been like a member of the family. They say stuff is stuff, but it was still hard to say goodbye to it. It had taken us on so many adventures and to different parts of the country. We also brought our first 2 children home from the hospital in it. Up until the need for a larger vehicle, it was our primary means of transportation for a long time.

After searching around for a new car, we decided to go with a Hyundai Elantra. We first bought a blue one and we loved the color, but we were just not feeling the beige interior as much after driving it a couple days. So, we took it back and picked out a gray one with gray interior. The dealership was great in making sure we had the one that we wanted.

So here it is. We haven't decided on a nickname yet, and we're still getting used to the idea of having a new car.

Stress

It's not a big secret that life is stressful.  There are so many demands on each of us for our time and energy.  The real key to handling stress is...  Yeah, that would be good to know, right?

I'm certain that at some point in my life I will be able to fully complete that statement.  I'm just not quite there yet.  Being a working mom now and still trying to find time to do everything else has not been the easiest transition in the world.  When I finally began to realize that the balance of everything was off, I began to ask for help.  The usual call to a friend, Facebook status with a bunch of suggestions (some of which are helpful and some of which are not), and then the prayer.

The moment when you realize that you can't do everything on your own no matter how hard you try is the moment when you find yourself muttering words in the dark at your bedside and pouring your heart out to the Lord along with a lot of well earned tears.  Well, at least that's how it was for me.

What's my brilliant answer to relieving MY stress?  For right now it's setting small goals for myself and completing them.  I can't do everything, but I can do something.  Doing something and completing it will help me to build back my knowledge that I can, in fact, accomplish things and do them well.  Once the ball gets rolling, the items start flying off of the check list!  I had a successful day today and accomplished many things.  I did not get everything done that I might have needed to, but I tried my hardest.

Ears

Once upon a time my parents told me that I couldn't have my ears pierced until I was 18.  Then, it was until I was 16.  I'd talked them down to 12 and then something magical happened.  My Grandmother bought me a fancy nice pair of earrings for my birthday and I did not have my ears pierced.  Fearing that I'd offend my grandmother by not wearing the lovely gift I was given, my parents promptly took me in and I had my ears pierced just after I turned 10. 

A few of my nieces have had their ears pierced and I've sort of put it off.  It's more work for the parents then most people think it will be and it's actually quite expensive given the cost of everything including a bunch of earrings to wear later!  Mike and I talked about it and decided that when she started asking for it and when we thought she would be ready for the responsibility of it, we would give in and do it.

We'd promised her that we would do let her have her ears pierced.  Then, like any good set of parents would, we delayed and put it off and made excuses because WE just weren't quite ready yet!  Low and behold, the waiting period is over and the ears now have sparkly little pink diamonds stuck in them.  She was super excited and did a really good job listening, holding still, and being brave! 

The nervous anxious smile...

the marker dots to place it in the right spot.

She took this big anticipation breath and it totally reminded me of myself when they take blood!

The finished product!  There will be many more pictures of her with her new earrings in the future.

Someone Had a Birthday

It's only a little late, but better late than never, right?  Ha ha!  I finally found the pictures from Eryn's birthday!!!!  They managed to get copied into a folder and since there was all ready images with the same numbers on them they became images with the names like "IMG_8725 (2)" which made them hard to find and camouflaged them with the others so well that I was convinced that I'd lost them.  Finally, I got lucky and found them while searching for something else!

Prepare yourselves for the Pink Nightmare...   

The birthday girl.

The sparkly super pink cake she wanted.

More than anything she wanted her cousins to come over and play and make bracelets with her!  She really love to make things.

The candles bring out the glittery sparkles on the cake better than I'd expected.

I tried to make a cake that was white, light pink, and dark pink so that it faded into the color.  It photographed a little red on the bottom, but it looked really great!

The little sisters made some bracelets too.  The older girls were pink and sparkly and the younger ones were purple and sparkly.

Pretty easy craft that wasn't very expensive either.  Thank you Pinterest!  Here's a link if you'd like to try making one yourself.

http://kerraftycreations.blogspot.ca/2012/05/easy-bracelet-tutorial.html

1 year older and about 10 years bossier!  Ha ha.  I'm so proud of my little stinker who reminds me all the time of what's great and terrible in myself all at the same time.

Stay At Home Mom No More

I apologize to my few, but faithful, blog readers who has been struggling with the same post on here for far too long.  This time, I'm not just too busy with life, but seriously too busy with everything!!!!!!!  Ha ha.

The end of April and the start of May brought forth a transition from my "Stay At Home Mom" status to "Working Mom."  Yep, I have reentered the work force!

I was hesitant to announce it or make much of a big deal about it, because the few people I had told seemed to give me such mixed responses.  Everyone has different reasons for wanting a job and just supporting a choice of someone to seek and obtain one is the best route.  No need to question why a person would want a job.  For me, I wanted a job to be able to contribute to our family, to society, and to my skills and abilities to have a job in case the time would ever come that I was needed to be relied on as a source of income.  Brushing up my skills on the computer and in interviews was important and now having a job and doing my very best at it are also important.

After a bump in the road with weird scheduling for training, I am now settling into my normal schedule for work and family life, mixed in with a little photography on the side!  Staying busy and productive is a big part of who I am.  Many women are content to stay at home with the children and not have a job outside the home (and that's great, I did it for 6 years), but I just needed the change.  The social outlet, the going out of my comfort zone, and the learning of new things with all the drama and excitement that come with it are reason enough for me!    

Fun at School

The kids were supposed to dress up as a nursery rhyme character and say the rhyme for their class.  Yes, any excuse for playing with the spider, this girl decided to be Little Miss Muffet!

They also do an Egg Drop where they come up with a way to try to protect their boiled egg from cracking when it's dropped from the roof of the school.

She was pretty sure that the tupperware and the cotton balls would do the trick and so were Mom and Dad.

Low and behold, the Principal doesn't just drop the eggs from the roof.  He threw them with ALL of his might as high as he could into the air and they then plummeted to the ground at near terminal velocity speeds.  The egg broke and she cried.  I felt so bad for her, but quickly pointed out a bunch of other kids who their eggs had broken too.  In the end, she decided that she's going to help her sister and brother when they are in kindergarten so that their eggs won't break like hers did.  THAT made me more proud than anything.  She took her frustration in stride and vowed to help others not have to have the same heart break that she did.