Mommy Secrets!!!

Being back at work 2 days a week was the best decision I could have made for myself and my family. I know lots of people probably think I am being selfish, and lots can't imagine going to work when there kids are so little, heck I even think I am being selfish, however I am so much happier and so excited for my days off with my kids. One of the best parts is I find it so much easier to fill our days. As I have written before I am not very creative and find it hard to think of things for us to do throughout the day, hence the reason I get out of my house a lot. From Fun Zone to Open Gymnastics, to parent and tot swim time. With only having three days now to think of activities it has been much easier and we have drastically cut back on how many shows we watch. As long as we get up and going and head somewhere in the morning, I only have the afternoons to fill the time, which is super easy when it is nice outside, we head outside or walk to the park, then come inside for some free play and then maybe some structured play. Then time to make super and wait for Daddy to come home. There has still been some rough days and some temper tantrums and meltdowns but life is definitely in a better place now. It also helps that Wade is so much more mobile, is amazing at playing with his toys, and though he still likes to be held it doesn't need to be 24/7. So the biggest reason for this post is because I wanted to ask all you moms and dads out there what has been your most creative easy activity that you do with your kids to fill the time throughout the day. I will share mine in hopes that you will all share yours so we can all benefit from this, as I am sure I am not the only mother who finds it hard to fill our days with fun, useful activities for our kids.

Mine has definitely been are play bins. I bought this bin from the dollar store for probably $4. I started by filling it with snow and then adding spoons and then those small tupperware snack holders. I fill the tupperware containers with water and then add food coloring. I put them directly in the bin and she loves using the spoons and taking the water from the containers and putting it on the snow and watching it change color. As the snow has started to harden and also melt I have done a couple more ideas. One is the pinwheel pasta with again spoons, bowls, containers and let her just play, kind of like a rice station only I find easier to clean up. A couple times I have also filled the bin with a small amount of water then again added spoons and bowls and soap and she will take her zoo animals and give them baths, I also give her a small tea towel here to dry them off with. Anytime we play with our bin it usually occupies a good 30 to 40 minutes of our time and lets me get some stuff done around the house. Alright so there she be, my best and most creative activity, oh and the best part wicked cheap, $4 for the bin and $2 for the pasta. Your turn to share now.

Memory sake

Another one of those post that I want to write just for memory.

I am a pretty lucky mother to have such a good 2 year old. She definitely has her moments and is very strong willed but overall this kid is pretty easy to be around  and a lot of fun. Today though Macie was perfection. Nothing could upset this girl, she didn't whine once, listened and followed through with everything I asked her to do. Played so well buy herself, with Wade and with the puppies. She was so happy all day, full of energy and so much life. She was constitently singing all day long jumping and dancing around. At the park she was running around and laughing so hard i thought she was gonna lose a lung. Hands down one of the funnest days I have had with my kids, seeing as Wade was pretty darn awesome today too.

WADE'S NURSERY

It is not totally done yet and I am still waiting on a couple things that I ordered of etsy that are taking forever to come but for bringing him home from the hospital to a completely empty room besides a bed and dresser it has come along way. I decided to just focus on certain colors I wanted for his bedroom and bring in cute accessories that matched. The main two colors are Navy Blue and Green, followed buy some red accents and hints of yellow and orange. I am really happy so far with how everything has turned out and can't wait to get the blanket finished and my etsy things in and up.
I also am going to sneak in a couple cute pics I took of Wade in his bedroom.

what a handsome little dude

we can't decide if we should paint the dresser white or leave it the way it is

this is my favorite part of the decor

hoping to one day make the blanket smaller.

This boy has muscles!!

Boys really are built different then girls. I remember the first time I touched Wade's legs I couldn't believe how strong they were. Only 2 days old and I was feeling acutall muscles. He has definitely proven himself in the boy department. He was rolling both front to back and back to front at 2 months and two weeks ago he started a bit of the army crawl and this past week he perfected it. Not even 5 months old and this kid is crawling. Although it is cool to see him doing these things when he is still so little, it makes me realize how much faster he is growing up then Macie. He is almost half way to one and it feels like we just had him. Slow down little buddy, don't grow up to fast on me.

Wonderful moments

Although the circumstances were not ideal, and I would have rather been down just visiting for fun and not for our Mothers funeral. There really were some wonderful moments in the sadness of Vicki's passing. We shared some wonderful memories and good laughs and got some great pics, mostly of Macie. 

A world of regret.

Tuesday March 11th I got a phone call from my husband while I was at work that broke my heart. He had just gotten a phone call from his sister letting him know his mother had passed away sometime that day. Corrine had called her a coupe times that day and couldn't get threw, so finally called the landlord to get her in and found her in her room. She ended up having a heart attack and complete respiratory failure. It seemed so unreal and like my world was all of a sudden in this strange bubble. I drove home in tears and had so many feelings of regret. Why did I not get to now this wonderful women better. Why did I not try harder to have a better relationship with her. We definitely where to very different people. I have always loved her and has always seen the sweet innocence in this women, but I know in my heart I did not open myself up to her, I did not fully welcome her into my life just because we didn't have anything in common. As we are preparing for the funeral I am filled with sorrow as I did not know this beautiful mother to my husband and grandmother to my children as well as I should have. Some wonderful things I did know about Vicki

- she loved her children and grandchildren more then anything.

- she loved reading her scriptures and tried her best to understand and live the gospel.

- she was definitely a girls girl. Pink, jewellery, nails, she loved her girlie things.

- she loved cats, she had a cat "phantom" who lived for I think 18 years or something crazy like that. It was a hard day when Phantom died.

- she loved her diet coke 

- Mark and Corrine have been cleaning out her apartment a bit and she kept everything. Especially notes and letters. Corrine had found a note that she had written to her mom in high school thanking her for the shorts she had boughten for her for gym class.

- She loved watching the news and always had a story to tell me or Mark about the world when we called or visited. 

- she was the sweetest most innocent women I have ever meet. 

As tears fill my eyes as I write this blog post I realize I loved this women even more then I thought. It saddens me so much to think in my time here on earth I will never see her again, never hug her again, it truly doesn't feel real yet. I hope I can live my life better, and be righteous enough to live with her again some day. 

WEEK 2

Week 1 is done and it was almost 100% successful. I spent $97 on groceries, until Saturday night when Mark and I decided to make Sushi, Tempura, and Inari. Having to go and buy the supplies for that definitely put us over our food budget, however we could have gone out and bought it from a restaurant and it would have been more expensive so we still in the end saved. That is my justification. Mark has a challenge at his work for the next 30 days to not eat out once. Spending $100 on groceries every week is great, however if you then go out and eat 3 or 4 times it kind of defeats the purpose of saving money, so these next 4 weeks should be huge savings with groceries and not eating out at all. For the most part I want to also try and include little household things in this budget like wipes, formula, detergent, toilet paper, cleaners, but it is definitely not a must to include it. On Saturday we realized we needed toilet paper, detergent, formula, and dog food so almost $!00 was spent just buying those things as formula was $4 cheaper then usual so I bought 4 of them. The biggest goal though is the less then $100 on groceries and if I can add household stuff as well great, if not I am not going to stress about it. 

Today was great success I bought everything on my grocery list and a couple extras I forgot once I was there that I needed for Macie like crackers and cereal. My total was only $72 dollars.

LESSONS LEARNED

There are so many things I have already learned about being a mom and I have only been doing it for just over two years. I love learning more and more everyday. Most of the things I have learned are more so about me and the kind of person I am, what I need to work on, what I am good at, what I can probably never change no matter how hard I try. I have never found a role more challenging and amazing all at the same time. I remember in the beginning how perfect I wanted to be. No junk food for my kids, only home made treats, never eating out unless it is healthy, no T.V. until she is three, reading for hours and hours everyday, that my child will be put in many extra cirricular activities. Then reality hits and you realize you are not the kind of mom you wanted to become but you are being molded into the type of mother your children need you to be. I remember when I first had Macie and spending hours on pinterest trying to find all the perfect activities to do with Macie so she would learn everything at an excellerated rate, be the smartest kid her age. Then the cardboard letter shape puzzle you spent hours making for you daughter gets destroyed in two seconds cause she finds it funner to pull the velcro off then try and figure out what shape goes where. Then you spend a whole day looking on the internet to figure out how to teach your child about colors and numbers and come up with all these activities, only to have her figure out her colors in pretty much one day and not using any of the activities you found on the internet and yet still can't count to ten no matter how much time you spend with her counting. I still don't understand why myself and so many other mothers put so much pressure on ourselves. I think because I am not this amazingly crafty and creative mother my children will suffer and they won't learn the things they need to learn cause I can't create these cool activities that all these amazing pinterest moms can. I am learning more and more everyday that as long as I love them, spend quality time with them and have patience with them they are getting everything they need. I have learned that somedays you have to throw on a movie cause Wade is screaming or the house is a disaster and company is coming, or sometimes she just needs some time to sit and not think about anything just like we do as adults. I have learned that children will learn at there own pace and when they are ready and wanting to learn something they will learn it. If we push them they will only get frustrated. Some people might think my child is slow because she can barely count to ten, but she is just two and knows her colors 90% of the time. It is so pointless to be in competition with other mothers and there children, it will only add more stress to your life and your child's. I have also learned that my kids will definitely not be put in endless activities. I have done a lot of research and watched many families that have there kids in ten million things and there life is chaos, and then I have watched families that have there kids in nothing and they get so spend so much quality time together as a family. Through my research of articles I have read and observing other families I definitely like the idea of the more quality family time and we can still be super active but it is together as a family and not seperated driving the kids all over the place and doing there own individual activities as mom and dad just watch. I have learned that there are some things I have no patience for, Macie whining, Wade throwing up all day long, and not matter how much I pray for patience in these areas it might be something I can never perfect it will be a flaw I always have. I have learned that I have really good patience when it comes to accidents like cheerios being dropped all over the floor, or a glass of spilled Milk. I have learned that I will always be a working mother, at least two days a week, I sometimes wish that was different and I was one of those mothers that just loved being at home all day long with there kids but I am not, I need some grown up time and time away from my house. I have also learned though that that is OK. There are so many more lessons I have learned, this has been an amazing journey and I truly am excited for the journey ahead and how I will grow and learn so much more from being a mother. The biggest thing I have learned over these past couple of years and I think the most important is that I need to be myself, I need to stop judging myself, I need to be OK with who I am and what kind of mother I am, doesn't mean I can't work at having more patience and learning new things,  reading books at how to love my children more, but it is OK that I am not creative and can't think of cool learning activities, they will still learn it. It is OK that I go to work a couple days a week, it is OK that Macie watches a show now and then, and it is OK if she has a treat or eats french fries as McDonald's, and most importantly that it is OK that all the other mothers out there do it different then me. If we all mothered the same it would be a pretty boring world out there, with a bunch of cookie cuter kids.

WEEK 1

OK so today is my big grocery shopping day. I have $100 in my wallet and my smallest grocery list ever. I started first by going through my cupboards, fridge and freezer and then from there planned out my meals for the week. We have a pretty decent food storage built up and I guess we should start using it. 

Monday- Leftover from Sunday

Tuesday- Shakes and my most favorite salad

Wednesday- Chicken Alfredo and Cesar Salad

Thursday-Leftovers and Shakes if there are not a lot of leftover

Friday- I'm away so Mark will do a frozen Pizza

Saturday- Chicken Meatballs with rice and green beans

Sunday- Leftover

One of the big things I learned in my reasarch is using leftovers more often. Making a little bit extra and eating a little bit less at super time so you can get two meals out of it. Another good tip I learned was the less times you go to the grocery store the less you will waste money on impulse buying. My goal for now is once a week and eventually try and get it to twice a month.

Grocery List

Pineapple
Strawberries
Bananas
Oranges
Peppers
Romain Lettuce
Frozen Mangos
Ground Chicken for Meatballs
Spring salad mix
cucumbers
celery
formula
baby wipes
bread
eggs

Food Budgeting

An area in my life that I have always struggled in is Groceries and finding ways to spend less. I don't really even think about it I just go to the grocery store and buy what I want within reason. There was one time in our marriage almost 9 years ago when we first moved to Lloydminster after Mark was done his summer student job at the weigh scale in Vermilion and he had no job and I had a full time job making $10 an hour and a part time job making $9 an hour. We had rent of over $800 a month a car payment plus all our other monthly expenses, this was the first and last time I did the pull the money out at the start of the month and live only off that for the month. It only lasted about 2 months and then Mark had a full time job and again finances were fine, so back to using debits and not really thinking about how much I am spending and what I am buying. Then two weeks ago Mark was talking to someone in our Branch and he said that him and his wife live off $200 a month for groceries. My jaw dropped, I was in awe, I did not comprehend how this is humanly possibly in Alberta. That is $50 a week for groceries. My goal is to spend no more then $600 a month and I think I hardly ever make that goal. So these past two weeks I have been thinking about it a lot and how if we could spend $100 a week on groceries, $400 a month we could probably save an extra 200 to 300 dollars a month. That is a lot of money and could go to so many things. Saving for family vacations, starting up Wade's education fund as we have not done that yet, or that little extra money every month for when hick ups come into our life. Like Ambulance bills, vet bills from puppies ripped out nail, or annoying things like the shingles blowing of our roof on a crazy windy day and costing over $500 to fix it. I am really excited for this challenge and have been doing lots of research and planning on how to make this goal become a reality. I will let you know next month how it went and how successful we were. Any tips or good advice send my way though I don't mind at all hearing how others have had success with Food  budgeting.

Best yet!!!

Just had my best workout today since getting pregnant with Wade last January. It felt incredible. I was able to push my body hard enough to run 10 KM's in one hour. I can fell my body getting more and more ready every workout for my half marathon. Next Saturday I start my official 12 week training for it. So in 13 weeks from now is the big day.