Whoa, I can’t believe I haven’t stopped to share life updates since February. The time is just slipping away from me, and it’s kind of crazy how fast it goes by before you realize it’s even gone by. Does that make sense? My mom brain doesn’t always keep it’s train of thought very well these days. In any case, it’s definitely time to stop and drop some life updates for everyone-I mean, the baby has practically doubled in size since February… Plus, I’ll share my currently info and favorites from the past little while.
Currently in July…
A few updates about where I currently am this month…
Currently Reading… I’ve remained on a Plantagenet and Tudor kick with my reading this year, and I’ve read through many books on this famous royal family. So far from the Cousin’s War Series by Philippa Gregory I’ve read The Lady Rivers (Jacquetta of Luxenbourg), The White Queen (Elizabeth Woodville & the House of York), The White Princess (Elizabeth of York & Henry the 7th), The Constant Princess (Katharine of Aragon), The Boleyn Inheritance (Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard, and Jane Boleyn), and am part way through the Taming of the Queen (Katharine Parr). I’ve also been reading a lot of Alison Weir, who is more historically accurate, but still entertaining. From her Six Tudor Queens series, I’ve read Katharine of Aragon: The True Queen, Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession, and Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen. All very good… And I don’t see an end in sight to this obsession any time soon as I’ll likely be continuing on with more historical fiction set around this time…
Watching… Parks and Rec, on repeat. I’ve been rewatching Parks and Rec both on my own and with Chris. I also finished up The Handmaid’s Tale recently and HOLY COW…
Drinking… Water, Coffee, and Peach Iced Tea.
Eating… A lot of Lean Cuisine honestly… They have some really good ones now, who knew? But, when I’m not lazy, I’m absolutely obsessed with this Crunchy Asian Ramen Noodle Salad. It’s SO good, and I’m kind of obsessed with it.
Feeling… Tired, overworked, crowded in my messy house, unsure of my financial and career future… You know, all the stuff. But, still so madly in love with this little girl of mine.
Planning… To get my house in order, to start blogging more again, to do some more fun stuff with the kiddos… Oh! Also, we registered the little one for some baby swim lessons that I’m looking forward to.
Life Lately
I’ve been neglecting the poor blog for the last couple of weeks… Summer is hard, I’m exhausted, you know the drill… It’s okay. I wont beat myself up over it if you wont. I am kind of shocked I haven’t had a good personal update in a while, as there’s always so much going on around here lately.
Baby Updates
I can’t believe baby girl will be 8 months old this week. She’s grown so much, and she’s still in the 90th+ percentile for height. She’s like an amazon warrior queen, and I think she’ll be tall like daddy. She loves to eat real food, though she hasn’t mastered the art of putting it in her mouth yet… Somehow she can get things she’s not supposed to eat, like her brothers’ legos, in there though. Who knows… Her eyes are still really dark brown, and I’m starting to doubt they’ll change color, but her hair has lightened up quite a bit. I’ll update on her more later this week.
Updates for Chris
Chris recently had surgery on his feet to cut the tendons on his foot that’s partially paralyzed. I sat in the office and watched the Podiatrist use a needle to saw the tendons and it was super weird. Over all, it’ll give him a much better quality of life when it comes to his ability to walk and support himself on that foot.
Updates for Me
This Spring I went to the ER twice (which is crazy for someone who’s avoided the ER practically her whole life) due to intense pain in my side. Turns out, I had a 5mm kidney stone stuck in my ureter, and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. I mean, 52 hours of labor with my sweet girl had nothing on this pain, which literally incapacitated me for several days. It was miserable. I eventually even had to have it surgically removed. So grateful for my family’s support and help during all of it. Baby girl thought my hospital bracelet was insanely fascinating, and she fought to try and get it off my wrist for hours after.
Lay Off Date
Work has still been an experience. Some of you may know that I came back from Maternity Leave on March 12th, and my company was bought by our main competitor on March 15th. Half of the company was let go just before the sale went through, and they received their previous severance and had two weeks with the company before their offical end date. Another good chunk of the company, including me, received notice that we were part of the “transitional team” and we’d be let go on September 30th.
Job Hunting
At first, I hit the ground running and updated my resume and applied for a bunch of positions in social media management and marketing. That’s the field I really want to work my way into, and I do have ten years of good experience here on my blog as well as some experience here with my company, which I’ve worked for 8-10 years. I had a few really promising interviews, but found nothing… The job market here is super saturated, and I don’t have any formal education or certification in marketing so there were other candidates that may have looked more qualified on paper.
Stopping Job Hunting
In any case, I decided to take a break from the job hunt and work on my skills here. I’ve kind of made a name for myself with the new company as their go-to for questions and help, and I’m hoping they’ll decide to keep me. I’ve also applied for a higher level and more permanent position with my current company, and I interviewed for it last week-keep your fingers crossed!
Summer Adventures
We’ve been up to so much this Summer, here are some of our favorite updates.
Family Swimming
We’ve been able to go swimming a few times. The boys are getting more comfortable in the water, which is great, and baby girl really loves it. I’ve signed her up for swimming lessons in August, and I’m so excited! My husband was loving it too – he loves swimming and goes to the local pool a lot more than us.
Back Yard Swimming Pool
We also picked up a cheap backyard blow-up swimming pool for the Summer and the boys enjoyed it. Baby girl? Not so much. It’s too cold for her, and no matter how much she loves water-the cold is not fun for her. Seeing how much the boys loved it and how much baby girl loved the public (warmer) pool, it’s really made us think. We’ve got our own house with a big backyard now so we’ve been thinking about installing an in-ground pool. We know it’s a big investment but it’s something my partner has always wanted and I really like the idea. We’ll have to look into how big we want to pool, where we would build, etc. but I think it would be worth it. Plus, nowadays there is a decent selection of poolside towel racks, toys, cleaners, and other pool products that’ll make maintaining the pool area easier! I’ll let you guys know if we go for it!
The Boys’ Birthdays
Both boys have birthdays in the last week or two of May, so we celebrated with Bowling and Arcade Games. They also got new scooters, helmets, and elbow/knee pads for their birthday gifts so we took them out to the park to ride them. B really loves his, but S is still a little wary of his scooter. I spent a couple of days reading unbiased reviews as I had no idea which scooters to get them. There’s so much choice! I think they’re pretty happy with the ones I chose though. Getting gifts can be tricky, but there are some cool ideas out there, like a birthday book in different languages so they can look back on every year beforehand! Still, they did like their scooters.
Family Camping Trip
We took the boys camping… Yeah, I used to think camping was super relaxing… It’s not with kids. Not at all. The 5 year old was up with the sun every morning, even though the rest of us wanted to sleep… The boys got kind of freaked out thinking of animals outside the trailer, and the trailer door wouldn’t stay closed no matter what we did. By the end of the trip we were all so exhausted we couldn’t wait to be home… Haha!
Lots of naps were needed throughout the trip, and even then the boys didn’t do much sleeping. But, they’re all pretty darn cute.
Being 5 is Hard
Funny story… Poor S, who’s 5, was going to bed late and getting up with the sun every day. If you’ve been around a 5 year old, you’ll know that lack of sleep can make them little monsters. S already has an issue with saying please and thank you when he wants things, and he’s so stubborn about it that we butt heads on it often. He refused to politely ask for a plate of cobbler when my dad offered, and I stood my ground and made him skip cobbler and go to bed instead. He fell asleep in the trailer.
How This Picture Happened
About an hour later he woke up and was peeking out of the windows at everyone. I went inside and offered to let him come out if he felt like being polite, he stubbornly stuck out his jaw and refused to answer me, so I left him to go back to sleep. As the night wore on, we had his older brother helping clean up, and B actually sat a bag of charcoal next to his brother who was now sleeping on the couch. We all moved inside to play cards, and looked over to see him grumpily glaring at us, until he slid off and fell asleep like this… Half on, half off of the couch. With the bag of charcoal now fallen over on him.
Bonding Time
In spite of camping being rough on us all, and us choosing not to go again this year… There was still some fun bonding. B is so good with his sister, and we played lots and lots of Uno.
Horseback Riding
My dad got a new horse this Summer named Charlie. He’s been so excited to lead the boys around on the horse, and he can’t wait for Amélie to be big enough to go riding with him. These photos are from my dad’s birthday party up at the family ranch this year.
Farmer’s Market Fun
We took the family to the Farmer’s Market and had a blast. They were able to try some African food, pet an Owl, and they tried honey sticks for the first time. It was a blast.
Amélie and Ollie’s first baby date. Soooo cute.
Amélie and Ollie’s first baby date. Soooo cute.
Baby Date
My friend Shiane had a baby just a little under 2 months after me. His name is Ollie, and we’ve been joking that he and Amélie are betrothed forever. Finally we were able to get them together at the Farmer’s Market. He is such a little flirt, all smiles and batting his eyelashes, but she has never seen a baby before and just stared at him like “what is this?” We’re really hoping they’ll grow up as good friends, since they’re so close in age and their momma’s are friends.
2 Weeks with the Boys
We had the boys for two weeks uninterrupted this Summer. We unfortunately didn’t have the money to go anywhere on a trip, so we mostly just stayed home and hung out. Man oh man, you parents that have to do a full Summer with your kids at home… how do you do it? They’re never entertained enough, they’re always bored… yadda yadda yadda. Also, they refuse to eat their meals all year long, but suddenly they’re eating you out of house and home and your grocery bill triples. Props to you, because two weeks was crazy enough. haha!
On the plus side, they enjoyed getting to spend so much time with their baby sister, and S lost his first tooth while he was with us. Sadly, he swallowed it while he was eating dinner, but I had him write the tooth fairy a note so she could still leave him some money. He liked having money in his pocket the next day.
The Carnival
Here in Utah, the 24th of July is a special holiday called Pioneer Day. My home town, where my parents still live, throws a big rodeo and carnival to celebrate and calls it Fiesta Days. When I was younger I loved the carnival, and we decided to take the kids this year. We’ve been once before a few years ago when the kids were younger and loved it then. It had loads of rides, there were Visual Display Systems around the event to make sure you didn’t miss any of the action, loads of things for the kids to do and a few places for the adults to relax in. But apparently there were new organizers this year and holy cow, it sucked so bad. We went first thing in the morning and it was still 100 degrees and too hot to enjoy ourselves… It was just as expensive as the State Fair (with wrist bands and tickets running us more than $100) and it had a quarter of the rides… There were like 4 adult rides (most of which S was too short to ride) and 6-8 kids rides (most of which B was too tall to ride). We wont be doing that again… The thing they enjoyed most was the face painting.
