So, I've been talking with my supervisor to figure out if I want to continue working when Caleb starts 4k. I have been wanting to stay at home with my little man for a while. Now that we have two kids, I want to be at home even more. It's not even the fact that daycare is a bit expensive. I just need to have the special time with my children while they're still little. They need their mommy. Plus, they won't be my babies for too long and I want to enjoy it while it lasts. Some day, they'll be teenagers and won't even want to spend time with me anymore.
Anyway, going back to my job..... I had been quite torn on whether or not I wanted to try doing part-time from home. I wasn't given an exact offer or anything, but they wanted to work with me since they felt I was a very valuable employee. Heck, I've done everything from training other employees to translating big chunks of the website into Spanish to helping test new technology and even assist with designing the new 1-pg application. I can see that they wouldn't want me to leave. In fact, most days, I like my job... or at least I used to like it more. Maybe it's the anticipation of not working anymore that makes it harder for me to leave the house in the morning. I just miss cuddling with my baby in the morning and spending time with Caleb all day while I was on maternity leave. I had a lot more energy for my family then.
The part-time, working from home opportunity was very appealing, but I just kept picturing my life becoming even more hectic as I tried to shuttle Caleb to and from 4k and then have both kids in daycare while I'm actually working. It'd be cheaper to work in the mornings while Caleb was in school and Sonya is at daycare because then we'd only pay for 1 kid vs. 2. Then, it probably wouldn't even be worth it to try and work 10 hours a week. Also, I didn't think it would be fair to give either my family or my job less than 100% so I had to make a decision. I had been praying about it for months and then all of a sudden, I realized that my priorities had changed when I went back to work after maternity leave. God had always been the center, then came family (and close friends), and lastly there was work. But, I was noticing that work was consuming my thoughts since the majority of my time during the week is spent at work. Then I was thinking how I didn't see my kids and husband because of work. God seemed to be on a back-burner.
It became clear to me that God needed to be #1 in my life again and that's how I decided to be.... a full-time stay-at-home mom starting in September!!!! :-) I'm excited, but a little nervous on how everything will work out. It'll be nice to get stuff done around the house and have a little more time to myself to blog or play music or maybe even paint! I'll be able to spend some time with friends and other moms. Hopefully I can even get a nap or two in during the week so that I'm more fun to be around when Tim gets home! Above all, I'll be able to focus more on God and get involved with some sort of ministry again. God is good and he definitely spoke to me while making this decision. I just had to open my heart and listen. I'm so glad I did. :-)
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
4th of July Weekend and Birthday Fun!
This weekend went by way too fast!
It was a lot of fun though.
Friday night, we headed out to the Lion's Den Park and walked out to the lake.
On Saturday, the Ferguson, Smith, and Wynveen families met us at Possibility Playground to celebrate Caleb's 4th birthday. There really aren't a lot of little boys at church that are Caleb's age, but I was kind of glad not to invite 20 kids since smaller get-togethers are more fun.
The boys enjoyed playing with Caleb's new soccer ball.
(p.s. I think Tim loved playing soccer with the boys too!)
I was kind of sad that Joey had left before I could a pic with him and the boys though... :-(... at least I got a pic of his sister with Sonya! ......It's kind of slow to upload the pictures one by one... so I'll probably post a few more pictures later when I have some more free time. :-)
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Another baby play date
Last night, we got the babies together again. I can't believe how much they've grown!!! Kayla, Debbie, and I walked to the park with the kids while Tim and Nathan threw a softball around. Caleb played on the slide and watched us laugh at the babies.
I love hanging out with my mom friends. It's so nice that our kids are close in age because we are constantly comparing what the other is doing or where our kids are at developmentally. Even though each kid has their own uniqueness, we're all in the same boat and can totally relate to each other. I'm constantly amazed by how quickly our little babies have become more alert and can hold their heads up. Soon, they'll ALL be rolling around. Watch out, moms! Here we come!
Our cute little munchkins!
(Levi, Sonya, and Jonathan)
Cute little bums... :-)
I love hanging out with my mom friends. It's so nice that our kids are close in age because we are constantly comparing what the other is doing or where our kids are at developmentally. Even though each kid has their own uniqueness, we're all in the same boat and can totally relate to each other. I'm constantly amazed by how quickly our little babies have become more alert and can hold their heads up. Soon, they'll ALL be rolling around. Watch out, moms! Here we come!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Father's Day!
I wish I had pictures to go along with this post...sorry! :-(
Father's Day started off with me trying to get a little more sleep. Sonya woke up 4 times the night before and boy was I exhausted. Caleb and I had gone to the store a few days before and I let him pick out something special for daddy. Wanna know what he decided on getting Tim? At first, he said "candy." Then he narrowed it down to gum. Now, my little boy loves gum. He'd rather have sugar-free gum for a treat than cookies or candy. It's probably better for him those those other sweets anyway. So, we ended up getting some strawberry flavored Trident gum for daddy. I really wanted to find one of those T-shirts that the kids could do their hand prints and things on ... or at least find a Father's Day sort of shirt. Apparently they don't carry those at Target. I looked everywhere. I finally decided on a Casting Crowns CD since the main song "Until the Whole World Hears" was the one they sang at the last concert we were at before they officially released the CD. It turned out that Tim already had that song downloaded. Darn!
I didn't make a special breakfast or anything and kind of felt bad that my gift wasn't as great as I thought it would be. :-( So, we went to church like we normally do on Sundays. After Sonya and I took a nap, we went swimming. It was Sonya's first time in the pool! :-) She loved it! Then we made homemade pizza for dinner. Caleb had gone on a field trip with daycare to Palermo's pizza factory and brought home some pizza dough. It was fun to roll out the dough and have Caleb help me add the sauce, shredded cheese, and the toppings. :-) (Did I tell you that Tim helped chaperone the field trip? lol... He told me some pretty funny stories about all the little kids. Apparently they thought Tim was a riot).
Once we were done eating supper, we decided to return a few items to Target (including the Casting Crowns CD) and then we were going to head to Lime Kiln Park. I decided to take a little detour and stopped at Pick 'N' Save first. Caleb and I picked out a Turtle Danish Coffee Cake (I brought some paper plates and plastic utensils along from home). Then we ate our tasty treat at the park and played for about an hour. Caleb made it across the monkey bars all by himself! Plus, he showed off his muscles while rotating the bar and pushing a little girl across that one apparatus that moves from one platform to the other. (Not sure what it's called, but hopefully you know exactly what I mean).
Even though the gifts didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, the day turned out to be a special, very memorable Father's Day anyway. Thank you Tim, for being a wonderful father to our kids!! I love you, honey!!! Muah!
Father's Day started off with me trying to get a little more sleep. Sonya woke up 4 times the night before and boy was I exhausted. Caleb and I had gone to the store a few days before and I let him pick out something special for daddy. Wanna know what he decided on getting Tim? At first, he said "candy." Then he narrowed it down to gum. Now, my little boy loves gum. He'd rather have sugar-free gum for a treat than cookies or candy. It's probably better for him those those other sweets anyway. So, we ended up getting some strawberry flavored Trident gum for daddy. I really wanted to find one of those T-shirts that the kids could do their hand prints and things on ... or at least find a Father's Day sort of shirt. Apparently they don't carry those at Target. I looked everywhere. I finally decided on a Casting Crowns CD since the main song "Until the Whole World Hears" was the one they sang at the last concert we were at before they officially released the CD. It turned out that Tim already had that song downloaded. Darn!
I didn't make a special breakfast or anything and kind of felt bad that my gift wasn't as great as I thought it would be. :-( So, we went to church like we normally do on Sundays. After Sonya and I took a nap, we went swimming. It was Sonya's first time in the pool! :-) She loved it! Then we made homemade pizza for dinner. Caleb had gone on a field trip with daycare to Palermo's pizza factory and brought home some pizza dough. It was fun to roll out the dough and have Caleb help me add the sauce, shredded cheese, and the toppings. :-) (Did I tell you that Tim helped chaperone the field trip? lol... He told me some pretty funny stories about all the little kids. Apparently they thought Tim was a riot).
Once we were done eating supper, we decided to return a few items to Target (including the Casting Crowns CD) and then we were going to head to Lime Kiln Park. I decided to take a little detour and stopped at Pick 'N' Save first. Caleb and I picked out a Turtle Danish Coffee Cake (I brought some paper plates and plastic utensils along from home). Then we ate our tasty treat at the park and played for about an hour. Caleb made it across the monkey bars all by himself! Plus, he showed off his muscles while rotating the bar and pushing a little girl across that one apparatus that moves from one platform to the other. (Not sure what it's called, but hopefully you know exactly what I mean).
Even though the gifts didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, the day turned out to be a special, very memorable Father's Day anyway. Thank you Tim, for being a wonderful father to our kids!! I love you, honey!!! Muah!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Play Date!
Last week Wednesday, the Steele's and the Nikolai's got together to play tennis. We played doubles for a little bit, but I was still feeling a bit under the weather so was more than happy to let the husbands play each other. Meanwhile, Deb and I caught up on the latest baby news and "gossip" while forcing our babies to pose together while Debbie took pictures. They are so darned cute!!!
Sonya was pretty happy about something!
Holding hands...
Wanna go steady?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Grace Like Rain
Over the weekend, I created a new blog, "Grace Like Rain" where I plan to continue my personal story. I already moved the previous entries from "Like a Sunflower" to there so it all flows together easier. Since it's starting to get closer to the part of my life that is a lot more private, I've decided to make that blog invite only. Don't worry, there's not a new post out yet for it. I haven't had much time to really think the next one through, but have lots of notes and little disconnected paragraphs started. So once things are up and running, I'll set up the invites. If you're interested in continuing to read about my journey, let me know so I can add your email to the list. (I'll still post entries like normal in "Like a Sunflower," but save the most personal bits for the new blog.)
I chose "Grace Like Rain" as a title because God's grace has covered me so many times especially when I've gone down the wrong paths. I'm a sinner just like anyone else out there. My life is far from perfect. Sometimes I feel like I hold these deep dark secrets that I'm just bursting to tell the world, but am afraid that people will think of me differently. Maybe the secrets aren't as "dark" as I might think they are, but I feel that by sharing more about myself, you'll understand me a little more. Here's to "The Journey ..."
Thanks to all of you that have been reading thus far!
I chose "Grace Like Rain" as a title because God's grace has covered me so many times especially when I've gone down the wrong paths. I'm a sinner just like anyone else out there. My life is far from perfect. Sometimes I feel like I hold these deep dark secrets that I'm just bursting to tell the world, but am afraid that people will think of me differently. Maybe the secrets aren't as "dark" as I might think they are, but I feel that by sharing more about myself, you'll understand me a little more. Here's to "The Journey ..."
Thanks to all of you that have been reading thus far!
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