The day started out like any normal day but by the time all the kids were down for their afternoon naps my stomach wasn't feeling quite right. Thankfully my husband was home and not working at the fire station this particular afternoon. The house was quiet and peaceful but my insides were anything but. And soon I found myself making a mad dash to the bathroom as my stomach heaved up everything I had eaten that day. As I lay curled around the toilet I was so thankful I had given the bathroom a good scrubbing earlier. It is truly the little things friends. After I had expelled what I assumed was the entire contents of my stomach another round of cramps, spasms, and intestinal distress hit my body. After it was over I slowly lowered myself back down to the cool tile floor. This happened for another two hours. My husband entered the bathroom to check on me and discovered me in the fetal position hugging the toilet with my pants around my ankles. Basically the most flattering position … [Read more...]
The Mama Confessionals: What No One Tells You About Motherhood
I can remember the summer before our oldest went to preschool. I continued to second guess myself in the weeks leading up to his first day of the twice weekly class he would be going to for a combined 5 hours a week. Were we making the right choice? Would he be ok? Would I be ok? And many more anxiety filled questions that were very similar. And here is a little spoiler alert for all you parents with little babies. These questions, at least in my experience, continue to happen for each new milestone. I don't think you can really understand this emotional roller coaster if you aren't a parent. At the time I was just 6 months out of counseling for postpartum depression and anxiety after the birth to our daughter. During the second week of preschool, I entered a room of 30 women+ women who I had never met to attend a weekly bible study that was held at the church where my child attended school. Clutching my Bible, I felt scared, my anxiety was choking me, but I knew I needed to be … [Read more...]
The Story of Us
Today is our 10 year wedding anniversary. Woohoo! Josh is my teenage dream come true! I had the biggest crush on him when I was 17 years old. I hope you enjoy my attempt to document how we started dating. The Prequel It can be hard sometimes to determine where the beginning of a story should start. I first noticed my future husband the summer before my senior year of high school. I was 17 years old and lifeguarding at Kiwanis Wave Pool and immediately developed a school girl crush on him. This guy, who I would quickly learn was named Josh, was walking across the pool deck wearing a Tennessee Titans hat and a shirt that indicated he was a pool manager at another city pool. I honestly didn't think it would EVER be a possibility that I would date Josh because I knew he had to be in college, if not graduated, but I still joked with my friends at work over the summer that I was going to marry him one day and have his babies.I was able to get scheduled twice that summer at the … [Read more...]
Fry’s ClickList & Once A Month Meals
Disclosure: The following post contains affiliate links. This means if you purchase an item from a link I provide to those shops, I might receive a commission. I only share products and services that I would personally use and think are a good fit for my readers. Thank you for supporting the brands that support our family. All opinions are 100% honest and my own. This summer our family was fortunate enough to go on two separate vacations. We ventured to the beach and to the mountains and it was wonderful to get out of the Arizona heat. But once we returned from vacation we never really left "vacation" in regards to our eating. I started making multiple trips to the grocery store each week because I had no plan of what we were going to be eating for our meals. Which in turn led to the amount of money we were spending on food being over what we budget for monthly. I found myself not being a great steward of my time or our family's finances as June turned into July and somehow I … [Read more...]
The Mama Confessionals: My Baby Swallowed a “Foreign Body”
Well here I sit at my laptop and resurrecting my series The Mama Confessionals. What is funny is that 8 hours earlier today I had decided it was time to do this. My plan had originally been to write about how horrific postpartum periods can be. I seriously feel like I am in junior high again, and really, who wants to relive that awkwardness. Lets just say that my washing machine has been doing double duty lately on my jeans and I am saying thank you for dark washed denim. Additional Reading: I Locked My Kid in the Car & Opps..I Peed My Pants. But instead of writing about all that, life decided get interesting last Tuesday evening around bath time and gave me some new material. Bath time is usually one of two things. A celebratory event that cultivates imagination and fun for 10-20 minutes before the full on bedtime routine starts or a rushed 5-10 minute wash up that usually ends in tears, most of the time it is the kids crying but sometimes I can feel like shedding a few … [Read more...]
We’re Debt Free!
I have been waiting to write this post for what seems like forever. In reality it is has been 6 years. Last week Josh and I made the final payment on our car and I can say we're debt free! We're Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee! We're Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee! We're Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee! 6 years ago we took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church and began to pay off our debt. Here is an overview of what we owed. Credit Card 1: $300 Credit Card 2: $1,200 Credit Card 3: $7,500 Car 1: $7,200 Car 2: $13,500 TOTAL: $29,700 We went from having 3 credit cards and two car payments and slowly began to make more payments on the lowest credit card we had. Then we used the debt snowball to knock out our debts one by one, from smallest to largest. Once the first card was paid off we added what we were paying on it to the next debt. We have successfully completed Baby Step 1: Save $1,000 for an Emergency Fund and now Baby Step 2: Pay off Debt. And it feels so good! We … [Read more...]
