Work-Mama Balance

The HARDEST thing in the world! Finding a balance between working woman and life. I find it especially difficult to spread myself between work, my husband, my kids and oh yeah ME time! Anyone else relate to The Incredibles Elastigirl?
Pulled in a million directions? Ugh I often feel as such. As Moms we are suppose to be the glue that holds it together, taxi driver, referee, nurse, teacher, best friend, cook, the list goes on and on!
I don't think there is any easy answer to figuring out how to balance it all. My day is non-stop. I wake up with my 1 year old son (sometimes as early as 5 sometimes as late as 7 - which then adds to running around trying to get out the door!) I get my 8 year old daughter ready for school, we wait for the nanny to arrive and out the door we go. I drop my daughter off at school and head straight to work. I work till 3pm (I am so blessed to have an accommodating work schedule)pick my daughter up and back home we go. I then juggle making dinner, 3rd grade homework, and chasing after a mischievous toddler! Some nights (forgive me!)I find myself counting down till bedtime, and as rotten as I feel I know I cannot be the only mom who has felt this way. One of the most important ways I keep it together is a schedule! I have alarms and alerts to go off to remind me to pay the credit card bill, upcoming doctor's appointments and every other little life detail that might fall between the cracks of this sometimes hectic life. I also try to plan ahead. I don't cook often, my husband is the chef in the family and although I love baking it's different then cooking! But I can make a mean shake n' bake chicken, and my speciality, spaghetti! Nights I know my husband won't be working I try to have the dinner plan ready to go so when I walk in the door I don't have to get ideas together last minute. At the end of the day all I can really do is my best and hope that I am succeeding in somewhat of a happy balance. You have to realize and accept you cannot please everyone, you cannot do it all and there will be days when you feel like you are failing miserably. But we are mom's and even though I am certain we have a little bit of superhero in us we are allowed to make mistakes, have freak outs and sneak away for the quick 15 minutes of silence. (I have been known to hide in my bathroom!) And to be quite honest there is no other way I would have it. I do love my life and every up reminds me of how blessed I am and every down reminds me of how strong I am!

Instagram

I've been having a lot of fun capturing different moments on my phone of my favorite subjects - Emma and Tyler! Then pretending I am some great photographer sprucing them up with Instagram! So easy and you can really bring the moments caught, a little more to life!

Labor Day

Nothing better than a 3 day weekend! Especially when I get to spend it with my kiddos! And Ben was actually off both Saturday and Sunday! Saturday of course we went to the zoo. Sunday was a relaxing day of church, cleaning up around the house and watching tv with my munchkins. Ben had to work yesterday and I had a TON of grocery shopping to do! Since we are early risers in my home (I have a 1 year old remember) we left for the grocery store first thing in the morning. I hit both Walmart and Kroger and was back home by 9 AM! Which left the rest of the day to relax with my babies! We did a whole lot of nothing but I did let them run around and play in the hose for a bit.

After drying off, Emma played with her neighborhood friends and Tyler explored the front yard a little.

That boy LOVES the outdoors! He is constantly pointing to the front door ready to go on an outside adventure! And now that Labor Day has come and gone that means Summer is officially over and we can start looking to all things FALL! I am ready to decorate the house for fall and start thinking of Halloween Costumes! Hope everyone had a fun and safe Labor Day weekend!

Zoo Atlanta!

So this weekend we surprised the kids and drove up to Atlanta to the Zoo. Besides a quick down pour (in which we got drenched!) we had a fantastic time! The Atlanta Zoo is really just quite amazing. You can get so close to the animals, I mean we were 15 feet away from a Silverback Gorilla! Breath-taking! Tyler got so excited over each of the animals. I think he actually got disappointed when he couldn't go play with the orangutans! They have a petting zoo for the kiddos as well as a train and merry-go-round. It took us 2-3 hours to see all the attractions (include the 20 minute downtime for the rain). If you are ever in the area I would definitely recommend checking it out!
 

                               The kiddos with a gorilla (which ended up making Tyler cry!)

                                                             Me & the little man!

                                                               The Silverback Gorilla!

Oh and this weekend - Labor Day weekend - marks 10 years ago that I met my husband Ben! To celebrate that here's a few pics of us over the past 10 years including one from our wedding day. :)

 

 

 

Happy Labor Day & God Bless!