Final Countdown!

So we are on the final countdown of the school year until summer time! 37 school days for us... they definitely can't go by fast enough! 

It is hard work being a mommy and working full time. Often times I find myself feeling guilty for working and not being able to stay home full time with my little one. I am a teacher and I do the job for the time off for sure more than liking what I do. (I did not go to school to be a teacher lol). It is nice to have all of the time off that we do so that I can be with my little one more than working a regular 9-5 all year job. I don't know how those mommies do what they do (working full time all year with only two weeks vacation and major holidays off). I would be even more sad than I already am being away from him. I totally like having some time to myself outside of the house and I definitely think every mom, working or not, should make sure to have alone time. I just don't like being away all day Monday-Friday.. hurts my little mom heart! Thinking about someone else being with him all day throughout the year instead of me makes me so sad... Irrational thoughts definitely float through my mind throughout the day... is he going to love her more than me? is she going to make him smile more than I can? Will she be the one who gets to experience baby firsts with him because I am at work? I know right now, we are not in a place where I can be a stay at home mom, but we are working toward that goal sooner than later! (THANKFULLY). I want to be the one who gets to experience everything with my babies not someone else. I have many ideas of things to do to help me stay home super soon! Anyone else feel this way more often than you would hope?

xoxo

Five on Friday!

O N E

                     I have never been so thankful for it to be Friday like I am today! This was my first week back at work after maternity leave. Lets just say that I am EXHAUSTED. My little one has been wanting to wake up more during the night than his normal one time.


T W O
                     We are on the countdown until summer at school. Only 39 more school days until I can go back to being with my little guy everyday for about 3 months!!


T H R E E
                     Blaze is in full baseball mode now! Getting closer to the draft, he tends to get busier! The Indians extended his territory this year as well. So instead of JUST having North Texas (which is already a huge area itself) he now has all of Oklahoma AND Northern Louisiana! Crazy little life we live!

F O U R
                    Had a total mom moment today. Little Lake pooped on me the other day on my jeans, well I washed them right after with other laundry. I put those CLEAN pants on today annnnd I noticed they still have some baby poop on them!! HA! AND my tshirt (that lets me wear jeans at work) that I have on, has some weird throw up stain down the front!! HAHA! Whoops!


F I V E
                    I was thinking the other day about how exciting it is to be able to celebrate mothers day and fathers day this year!! I need some cute ideas for fathers day to do for Blaze though!! Any thoughts?

Currently {April}

Currently {April}

Making:vacation plans! I am trying to figure out where in the world we are going to go over Christmas break this year for our vacation!! I have narrowed it down to a few places but of course, I have to try and get the hubs opinion (which isn't the easiest haha)


Wishlisting: That I could just get through these next 7 weeks of school so it can be summer and I can be with my little one again all day!! And putting together ideas of what I could do to stay home sooner than we talked about! haha


Cleaning: Lake's closet out! I boxed up all of his cute little newborn clothes the other day and it was so sad! He used to be so little just a few short months ago! Now at 3 months, he fits into 6 month clothes :(


Posting: Grades for my students! haha the 5th six weeks is over next week so I am trying to get all caught up from being on maternity leave!


Tasting: My lovely prepped meals for lunch that my husband made for me this week! Good ol Chicken & Rice for lunch! I also recently had those Milano Cookies that were lemon & chocolate flavored... SO GOOD!

Im linking up with Anne today!

Babies, Babies, Babies

Follow my blog with Bloglovin So I am a high school teacher and have recently gone back to work since my maternity leave has ended (enter sad face). I've been hearing about girls in my school who are pregnant and of course all of the students are buzzing about it all the time around school. I overheard a conversation just yesterday in one of my classes about pregnancy and of course they ask my opinion since I was just pregnant not too long ago. I told them being 26 years old myself, having a baby is TOUGH work. I tried to explain to them how exhausting newborns are and how much time, money, patience, etc that comes with having a newborn. YES babies are cute, NO they are not just cute and sweet 100% of the time (like a lot of kiddos think). Babies are definitely a stage in life that you need to be prepared for (as much as one could be prepared haha). One of my boy students then told me about how he had to help raise his older brother's baby that he at 18 years old. He told the others that they would have to get 2 or 3 jobs that hopefully paid $10 an hour to afford a baby. (I kind of laughed on the inside because you would need to make a lot more than $10 an hour working at a couple of part time jobs that a high school student could actually get).


It makes me sad to see such young kiddos putting themselves in such a sticky situation. To me, I can't 'be happy' for them as they are in no place in their current lives to actually raise a baby how it should be raised. It hurts my heart to see young girls that get pregnant because they are not ruining their life like a lot of people would say, but I do believe they are not making the smartest decision that could be made. Their parents or grandparents will end up doing a lot of the work and paying for a lot of the necessities of what a baby needs (for a lot of girls) and that shouldn't be their parents or grandparents job. I wish parents would teach their babies to be smarter about making certain decisions in life and that there are actual consequences (and some last a lifetime).

I just pray for the best for all of them as they bring babies into this crazy world that people already struggle in. Pray for their little sweet babies that will need a lot of love and attention and that hopefully they get that from their parents who are kids themselves!

Maternity Leave is Over

Unfortunately my maternity leave is over tomorrow!! I can't believe how fast these past 3 months have gone by! Little Lake man has grown so much in 13 weeks it is crazy!! I wish we actually got A) paid maternity leave, and B) Longer maternity leave like other countries. It still blows my mind that in today's time, in such a developed country, we still don't have ANY type of maternity leave. We are THE only developed country in the world to NOT offer any type of paid maternity leave. I feel bad for the women out there who can't afford any maternity leave or even those who only get 4 or 6 weeks. I couldn't imagine only being with Lake for that short of a time. First off I would be totally exhausted at work and I feel like I would be a crappy employee to have around lol. Second, I would be really grumpy due to the lack of sleep you get. 

I have definitely enjoyed every minute of being with Lake though. I do get envious of all of my friends with little ones who get to become stay at home moms when they have a baby! What I would do to be able to stay home full time with him right now! THANKFULLY we only have 8.5 weeks I believe until summer break where I will get almost 3 more months to be with him! :) 

I definitely got as many snuggles in as possible over the weekend and he is currently asleep on me right now! This next week, Blaze gets to have daddy duty all week with Lake!! So Lake will be going to many baseball games this week with him! hah Should be a fun experience for them two!

Last Week of Maternity Leave

So this is my last Thursday of maternity leave before going back to work on Monday! SO depressing... What I would do to stay home with little Lake man! I think knowing that Blaze will be with him all week next week will make it easier for me to get adjusted to going back to work and leaving him though! And THANKFULLY we only have 8 weeks until summer break! Woohoo! Then I get another (almost) three months off with him! I still can't believe he is 3 months old! I will say that maternity leave went by WAY too fast!! :( I have definitely enjoyed every minute of it... even the tough days! Lake and I have especially been enjoying this week together.. I'm hoping he does well when I go back considering we have been together for 3 straight months, every single day together!! Monday will definitely be tough on me! :( 

While we have had to put our adoption plans on hold, we have loved every day with Lake so far! :) A lot of people have asked us if we are still wanting to adopt now that we have Lake. Lake was never a factor of IF we were going to adopt or not, but more of WHEN we would adopt. Our agency has a policy about adopting when you're pregnant. They want us to wait until Lake is one year old to adopt but we can start all of the paperwork (which we already have done) when Lake is 9 months old. So to answer a lot of people's questions, YES we are still planning on adopting and we are going to start our home study and paperwork back up in August! So we are hoping (fingers crossed) that Lake will have a brother around this time next year! 

We are going to enjoy our last free weekend together before I have to go back to work! The weather is supposed to be nice so hopefully that won't change! Lake gets to go to his first bridal shower this weekend for Auntie Lauren!! 

3 Months In

So we made it to the 3 month mark already!! To say it's been a piece of cake would definitely not be the truth! I know a lot of mommy friends of mine always make newborns out to be super easy, "all they do is sleep", "he/she is THE easiest baby ever", "my baby never really fusses", etc... all I can say is that no one truly prepares you for your first baby. First off, Lake was VERY VERY colicky, which neither Blaze or I had ever heard of before. That was a fun learning curve that consisted of sleeping on the couch for what felt like weeks at the beginning. THANKFULLY Lake has slowly grown out of the colic and is just a fussy baby around 7pm every night. He still isn't the easiest though, for example... I cannot do anything without carrying him around with me. He only takes about 30 minute naps.. MAX every now and then throughout the day. He does still sleep in his rock-n-play because that was the only place he would sleep with the colic issue and now loves it because it rocks him all night. Don't take any of this as complaining about having a baby... I just want to inform people that babies are definitely not all cute pictures and easy times like some people think. Babies take A LOT of work, ours just more than others maybe!!

I will say that having a baby, especially a super fussy and difficult one like Lake will push you in your marriage. So my advice is if you are not in a good place with your husband, I would not even think about having a baby. We definitely had to get through the rough nights together that consisted of no sleep and us getting irritated because we had had no sleep. Blaze and I had prayed for months about Lake before I was even pregnant and we still make sure to pray together each night before bed. We pray over little Lake and his development and health, and that we, together, can be Godly role models for Lake and his future siblings!! I think that Lake has made our marriage stronger, especially as more time goes by.

These first few months have definitely been exhausting but I wouldn't trade them for anything! Sadly, this is my last week of maternity leave before I go back to work for 8 weeks (until summer break)!

Here are some products that we used to help his colic the best that we could!

Colic must haves by aschleif on Polyvore

Here are some pictures from yesterday that I decided to take!