The Unexpected Working Mother

I've always wanted to participate in a Wordful Wednesday post hosted by Chocolate on my Cranium but I always forget, run out of time, or just don't do it. I am finally going to do it today.

My husband and I had our first child in May of 2010. We were so excited to finally have a baby after being married for almost 5 years. We knew that we did not want to have our child in day care so we made some cut backs on our expenditures so I could quit my job and stay home with our son. I was home for 3 months when work called asking if I would be willing to help with a project part time from home. Jared and I felt it was a huge blessing to have the extra income and since I was still at home we said yes. That lasted for almost 5 months and ended in December of 2010. We knew money would be tight again but we knew we were doing the right thing by having me be home. The mother's role is a nurturer and should be with her children.

Well mid January came and our world went upside down. My husband lost his job and we were both on unemployment. Once we got past the shock of the situation we realized we were being blessed unexpectedly. Jared got the opportunity to go to school in the spring. I found a job coaching track and field. Money was extremely tight but with the help of different programs, our savings, and our food storage we were making it through. I never thought I would be using my food storage for a non-natural disaster situation like this.

In April I got a phone call for my old job asking me if I wanted my job back. I couldn't believe it. I had been looking for a full time job as now we knew that I needed to work and support my husband to go to school so he could in time support our family so I could be home with our children.

It has not been the ideal situation that I would have picked out with me working full time and being the provider but what a huge blessing it is that I have the skills and a team who believes in me that I can provide for my family. My husband and I have tried counting our blessings through this trial over and over again. They are numerous. We've been blessed to always have food, to be able to pay our bills and still have our son home with us. We've had to use some other resources to care for our son but it's always been in a trade situation (you watch my kid, I'll watch yours). I feel so blessed as we've gone through this trial and changing our circumstances from what we expected to do and how we were living.

Flowers from Nana's Memorial

Aren't these flowers beautiful? I had to take their picture to keep them in my memory.

My mom gave them to me today after doing a slideshow of my grandmother's life for her memorial today. It was so fun and I got to use my new portable scanner.

Again and Again

Once you know you can do something you want to do it over and over again right? Benjamin keeps running back to his bedroom (even if the door is closed...he just opens it right up) and climbs up into his crib.

He does have another favorite spot to hang out though and that is under the rocking chair.

We've had fun hanging out in his room letting him climb into his crib and playing. Amazing how it's a fun place now that he can get into it on his own.

Climbing Into His Crib

Yesterday Benjamin showed us how he can climb into his crib. Thankfully for now he can't climb out.

My new hair cut.

Hair Cutting Time!

Benjamin's hair had gotten a little on the long side. It was starting to curl in the back and took a lot of brushing. I had desired a haircut for some time and after a bad attempt at myself I decided to just wait. My mom is in town so she was able to cut my hair while Jared cut Benjamin's.

Benjamin takes more than one person and Phineas and Ferb to manage to get his hair cut. It tickled him a lot but at the end he was not enjoying it has he hand to held so still to get it cut.

I was a much better person to cut hair on. Though I always worry that I am not sitting straight and making my hair lopsided because of it.

Before

After

Quiet Time

We had the Lyon's children over this past Wednesday again. After Gwendolyn went down for her nap we tried to have quiet time for the others. Benjamin had his own pillow and blanket on the couch but wanted to share with Wyatt. It was cute.

Nap Time

Monday was a rough day at least in the morning. I got irritated with my computer because it wouldn't work properly and I decided to reboot after I got the bare minimum done for work. I realized I hadn't read my scriptures yet for the day so I got that done and then laid down with Benjamin and just snoozed. Jared came home from school and found us relaxing and eventually sleeping.

A Seat on the Bookshelf

Have I mentioned our little boy likes to climb? I got a text at work on March 9th with a picture of my little boy on my bookshelf. Apparently a spot had opened up enough for Benjamin to climb up and crawl into a nice little spot.

We have such a feeling of pride and terror. What's next?

Just Like Us

Benjamin is so much fun! He keeps us very busy but it is just amazing being parents and we feel so blessed to have him in our lives.

Benjamin wants to be just like us and do what we do. Whether that be talking on the phone, pulling the blankets up in bed or wearing shoes. He will do it himself and show us how big he is.

He even put the shoes on the right feet and walked all the way from the garage door across the family room.

Stamping Flowers

I tried some new things and I'm not sure how much I liked it. I do like the flowers and had fun stamping them but the Thank You I should have chosen a different ink color. I forgot that the embossing ink takes on the color of the ink used instead of keeping it's white color. Ooops.

I am entering this card in the Share the Good News challenge over at The Crafty Pad. They have some amazing looking cards. I defintely need to get some old books that I can play with for crafting like this because what I had was not my first choice.

Hello Friend

I do love to craft but lately when I have time I don't feel inspired. I feel like most everything I look at is so amazing and I can't quite compete. I also think the mess of my crafting space has something to do with it. Which I am working on but I only have a little free time so not much happens.

I found some time to craft this weekend and created the below two cards. I'm entering them in the Whoopsi Daisy Challenge of Lace and Pearls. I don't have any real pearls so I used my liquid pearls.

A Helping Hand

When it comes to doing anything in the kitchen whether it be baking or cooking or even cleaning, Benjamin want to be apart of it and not miss out on any of the action. So I have to be a little more careful and creative in how I do things to try to keep him from getting cut or burned to the best of my abilities.

Any guesses what we were having for dinner?

We had a recent incident this past week while I was trying to make cookie dough I raised up the mixer to add more flour and Benjamin turned it on. I tried to hold onto the mixer and prevent cookie dough from flying as I yelled for Jared to turn it off. Luckily I mostly found it on the counter and the floors and not the ceiling and cabinets.

Consequences for Climbing

When you have a climber they are prone to get injuries. Or at least that has been my experience. Benjamin is always getting bruises or fat lips.

This injury is from kneeling on his rocking chair instead of sitting in it and throwing himself backwards. He knocked himself pretty good right on the bridge of his nose into my piano bench. He cried for a minute and went and did it again.

A Place to Sleep

Benjamin loves to fall asleep with us. Or at the very least to be near us. I've thought about bringing his crib into our room to see if it makes a difference for him to go to bed at night. One night we had an extra pillow on Jared's side of the room and Benjamin crawled off our bed and laid on it next to the bed. Jared grabbed some blankets and set Benjamin up and he loved it.

It's pretty cute to roll over and see him laying down in his own little space. He is quite the bed hog and in our queen size bed with Jared and I there's really not much room left. Last night in fact he crawled off the bed and laid down on our dirty laundry pile. He fell asleep there so Jared tried to move him to his bed and when he woke up laid back down in our bed at which point Benjamin threw a huge fit and crawled off the bed and laid down again on the dirty laundry. Jared eventually was able to put him in his crib but talk about weird.

Chocolate & Peanut Butter

I do get desperate for chocolate and sweets. What can I say...this baby girl has a sweet tooth!

I found a great recipe for a chocolate peanut butter cookie. Benjamin and I were big fans. I've made them twice.

No naps...we've got a trick for that

At 20 months here is a cute picture of Benjamin completely passed out.

Benjamin doesn't always like to take a nap and will try desperately to stay awake. We have a little trick in our back pockets...(drum roll please) Daddy playing Forza 4! Works like a charm. We did it again today and it only takes minutes. And Benjamin is still asleep now.

Stovetop Popcorn

As I think I might have said before...sometimes popcorn and orange juice is a great dinner to our family on Sunday nights. We ran out of microwave popcorn a long time ago and have not bought more. We've decided it was a big of a luxury. We still had popcorn kernels. I had popped it a few times in our air popper and it tasted okay...a bit stale too me which made me think my popcorn was just old. Jared looked up a recipe for stove top popcorn and we fell in love.

Here is Benjamin enjoying some popcorn for a snack and if you look closely we are having smoothies too.

The Orange Blob

Here comes the word again...organizing. I was working to organize my clothes and a bunch of them landed in the living room (much to Jared's dismay). Benjamin found one of my swimsuit covers and thought it was so funny to be covered with it.

Such a cute orange blob huh?

(January 27th, 2012)

Well then we left the camera on and in Benjamin's reach...here are a few pictures he took.

Pen Holders

I've been working on my craft room and making it more organized forever now...huh?!! I found one of my books of craft ideas a few weeks ago and was inspired to make these cute cones (I had always wanted to make since I got the pattern) to hold pens. I have several gel pens and they sit in a huge tub that Benjamin loves to take and dump out everywhere. It's hard to see all the different colors I have too. So I decided to make some cones and see if I could use my wall space (again) to organize my crafting items.

What do you think?

Want to make one? Let me know and I will put a tutorial together. The first one took me forever because the instructions had no pictures. I took pictures on my second through the 5th one to ensure I would know how to do it again in the future and make anyone else's life easier.