I am officially a Stay-at-Home Momma for the next 5 months! Due to hospital policy and light duty, and with my pregnancy condition not improving, I am on a leave of absence. When I have Baby A, I will thankfully have FMLA at that point (hit the year mark!) I am going to fully live up this new job and all the time I get with my boys. Needless to say it has been an incredibly hard adjustment for someone who has always worked their whole life and absolutely LOVES being a nurse, but it has been so amazing getting to focus on my true little love(s).
Family First.
We enjoyed every last bit of the end of summer!
Fall happened for 20 seconds around here, then winter came. But! That does not stop my excitement for Halloween and all things Fall! In fact, for our anniversary this year, Austin got me a bunch of Fall decorations because "for as much as someone loves Fall, you have zero decorations. I'm gonna have to fix that!" Lies. I have a plastic $1 pumpkin pail... but these gifts are a serious, serious upgrade! ;)
I also made the Ward Halloween Party Poster!
We got to continue a first little family tradition (with Auntie P this year too!) of going to the Koltiska Pumpkin Patch! I cannot believe R is big enough now that we have traditions like this!
Oh he had soooo much fun with the farm animals and pumpkins!
We really have been settling into this place, especially with Austin's new job at Steven Titus and Associates. He is really happy there, and of course I am always blabbing about loving what I do too! Austin even brought some of my old prints out to decorate his office! Of course he picked the immigration theme cause he's bringing immigration practice into the firm, haha!
We have been slowly budgeting and swapping out some of our older furniture, and got a new table! We also were able to get a nice couch that provides a bed for guests considering we are filling our second room with our little ones, haha!
With the changes and more settling down, Austin and I picked out an "upgraded" wedding set! I absolutely love my pearl and still wear it to switch things up, and I loved having a unique ring. So of course I picked something different other than a diamond because I could not get away from citrine! I have always, always loved yellow and citrine. And it happens to be R's birthstone, and very likely Baby A's birthstone. How cool would that be? Anyway, I am in love!
Between being cut back hours, to light duty, to ultimately having to stay home, I have revisited my love for sewing. It has been a ridiculous sewing fest in my home! It is something I can do at the table and sitting.
I have been making a whole string of the famous Carmen Family Aprons, including a free-hand little toddler one for R! I mean look how stinking cute the two of them look baking cookies!!
There have been more since this photo of the bench was taken...
Austin's Dr. Who and Zelda aprons,
And of course I had to make myself a Halloween/Fall Apron!
I also have been working on Baby A's quilt and finished it finally! I'm so happy with it!
It turned out so well and a much larger size than R's baby quilt, I felt like I needed to make R his own bigger one too. R's thing has kinda been a space theme so I went with it and am so jealous of all those colors!
Austin's law firm sponsored a table for a fundraiser here in town, and it was going to be a big event where a dress would be nice. Being 33 weeks pregnant on that date, and only having a Walmart and Maurice's in town... (and no I don't trust all the Amazon companies within my budget....) I figured I could sew one.
I really need to get a photo of the whole thing --I ended up making a lace applique belt for it too! SO happy with the way it turned out. I now want to make a million of them with some fun prints and maybe even some Ms. Frizzle space themed stuff happening haha!
Here are those photos from the event!
The event people kept trying to get the people involved with stuff like hula-hooping and dance-offs. I remember this one girl asking me to come out and hula hoop (Circus Theme btw) and I just stood up and pointed to my big basketball belly hahahaha! Nope, not today sister! It was super fun and omgsh I sure hope we have plenty more of these things to do together!
We also enjoyed General Conference at the Carmen's house in Casper this year! It's always nice to visit family, and R absolutely LOVES his extended family. I'm not gonna lie, it is super nice to have some extra hands too with that bundle of energy! Grandma Carmen taught R how to do dishes, and he just absolutely loves helping us do anything now including vacuuming, sweeping, throwing stuff away, picking up, wiping down tables and chairs, cooking... it is so fun to see him grow. It slows you down immensely but the proud little look on his face is just killer.
I jokingly sent this Swiffer and Dyson picture to my Mom and MIL with the caption, "Oh, you could be my beeesssttt frrriieeennnddd!"
That ended up not being a joke after R decided to "feed" Juno (our cat) and littered the hallway and kitchen with a full bag of cat food when I took my eyes off him for a second. HA. I'm new at this!
He is just loads of fun and I'm learning super simple things make him happy like repeatedly filling his piggy bank, and finding Mom's old nurse barbie to take to Dad's work...
Everyday is amazing.
Because I turn into the biggest most hugest depressed blob on the face of this planet when not working or productive, I actually started a bullet journal list to make my life seem more "to-do" like.
It's nice to hold myself accountable to doing specific things with R and home chores, sewing, church things, etc. It barely ever gets checked out fully as I am severely limited with physical strength these days but it helps me to plan my day around my limitations too.
I basically just write out Realistic and Idealistic goals each day. And honestly as time has progressed, it's become maybe three things I can realistically do while I'm taking care of the newest little one, Baby A.
Now that I am all caught up and have a little more home time on my hands, I hope to document these exciting next 5 months much more often! And you guys can witness a new stay-at-home mom and toddler antics such as the cat food dump from this blog too :)
XOXO,
From Wyoming!
Comments
Post a Comment