Change is Good

Change is a good thing.  It's good for the soul and it promotes growth.  Pruning is difficult but it's what's best for the branch.  

This is the mantra I have had for myself for the last few weeks.  There has been lots of change going on within my life and at times it has been overwhelming.  I will just give you the "Cliff-Notes."

- Chris changed shifts at work.

- I'm still in my walking boot.

- I started a new job.

- I quit my old job.

- We are making some big changes at home!!

 Back before my foot surgery Chris switched shifts to be more convenient with my healing process and ensuring Alex was well taken care of.   Well that change has been incredibly difficult and finally he was able to go back to his previous shift and life is back to normal once more. 

I had a follow up appointment for my surgeon and there is improvement but not enough.  So he ordered a bone stimulator for the next 4 weeks and then come back for repeat x-rays and hoepfully kicking the boot once and for all!

I started a new job!! What the what?!?! I never thought I would say that!  When I started NICU nursing I thought I had found my forever job!  And this is definitely still the case!  So what the new job?  Well I have never been one to get "comfortable."  In fact there is nothing that makes me more anxious as a nurse.  It is often when you are comfortable that mistakes happen.  While I was off for recovering from surgery I was approached for this opportunity and to say the least it had me shaking in my boots but so excited.  It provides me with an opportunity to still care for babies but also help more people across a greater area.  I started last week and I don't have a single bad thing to say about it so far.  Let's just say it's so nice to feel wanted.

I quit my old job?!?!  What the what?!?!  My original plan was to stay on a optional basis with my old job but as things happen between life and trying to manage 2 jobs it got hectic.  So Chris and I prayed about it and spoke at great length about what to do and it was decided I would drop the optional job while I could still leave on good terms.  

We are also beginning the final stages of making some big changes at home.  Our kitchen has been "torn-up" for over a year.  I had a spur of the moment idea and my loving husband went straight to work.  So we began this project with one goal in mind, to make ourselves more counter space.  So we moved our fridge to the other side of the kitchen and took the counters that were there and placed them where the fridge once was.  In doing this we created over 10ft of consecutive counter space and an area for our trashcan to be hidden. Well we are in the homestretch.  We will be completing our project next month and I could not be more excited to share it with you!  I will be drafting several posts with my inspiration and our plans over the next few days.

I am so excited to be back to the blog, and I can't wait to share to you everything that is going on.

My Favorite Sticker Shops & Most Recent Order

Let me just say, I have fallen hard for a few select sticker shops on Etsy lately.  I'm talking ride or die, stalk them on Instagram and Twitter and being crazy obsessive checking them for updated items.

I must say though there is nothing more that ticks me off than logging into Etsy to check out your favorite shops and seeing their shop is closed for vacation....

But back to the good stuff!

I have several favorite shops that I always fall to when I am shopping on Etsy at 330 in the morning...

First up PeanutButterTaco:

I truly think Monica, the shops owner, may just be my soul sister.  Her stickers are food for my soul in that they fit my planning style perfectly. Functional but pretty and I just DIE over her half boxes.  I have multiples of all of the ones she has listed!  And don't even get me started on how much I love her F*uck it List and absolutely love that she is taking certain things from that list and making them into whole sheets. 

Next MilaPrintShop:

I found MilaPrintShop through Kim @LivingTheWifeLife.  Her stuff is fantastic.  I think my favorites from her are her sampler sheets and her small event boxes.  But let me just tell you I have an almost $90 order on it's way to me now and could be here by the time you are reading this!  I plan to do a review/haul on that order for my next Wednesday post. 

Finally my new favorite LittleMissPaperie:

I can't think of any videos I watched that brought me to her shop so I had to have found her on Instagram in the middle of the night and started shopping then.  I really love her horizontal weekly kits and I am absolutely dying over the sneak peek of the weekly kit she is releasing at the end of the week.

If you are as obsessed with planning as I am I highly encourage you to check out all of these ladies shops and let me know what you think of them also!  I have put links to their Etsy shops below.

PeanutButterTaco

MilaPrintShop

LittleMissPaperie

Even Superheroes Love Story Time

One of my goals for this year was to get Alex out of the house more.  Before the whole mess with my foot started last July Alex and I were going to Story Time pretty consistently at the library, well as it does life got in the way and it fell by the wayside. 

When I made my goals for 2016 getting back into the swing of things was top notch!

Alex has recently discovered his love for books and has enjoyed spending time at the library so much that we spend a few days a week at the library for a couple hours.  One of Alex's favorite times at the library is story time and music class.  Every morning now the routine goes:

I wake Alex up.

He asks if we are going to church.

He asks if we can go to music class.

He asks if we can go to story time. 

Can I wear my cape?

I love spending time with this cutie but even more so I love watching his little brain grow!

Alex's 4th Birthday Brain Dump

So right around this time every year is when I start to mentally plan out Alex's birthday party for that year.  I usually take an account of all of the things he is loving at that point.  Well this year I am having such a rough time nailing down a theme.  He is loving so many different things.  SO I will share with you all of the things Alex is loving and the themes we are contemplating for his birthday party. 

Some of these themes I feel like I have already taken out of the running simply because they annoy me but they are still in the running.

PJ Masks has become a staple!  I searched high and low for these toys before Christmas only to find out Disney is not releasing these toys until sometime in 2016.  So I ordered him a character mask for each character and a cape to go with it.  But Alex knows every word to the theme song and all of the characters names and I know he would have an absolute ball with this theme.

Minions.  I am so over Minions.  But Alex loves them!  He has a nightlight in his room that is a minion that sings to him and he will not go to sleep until that thing get turned on.  There would be so many cute Pinteresty ideas to go along with this but yellow is just not my color lol.

Another theme that Alex has been obsessed with is Spiderman. I think Spiderman would be fun however I feel like every 4 year old boy has done this theme.  So maybe this will just be something be pass on.

 Alex also loves Miles From Tomorrowland.  Merk might just be his favorite pet.  This theme is definitely in our top 3! 

And finally Star Wars.  We took Alex to the drive-in with us the night we saw The Force Awakens and he fell in love.  Everywhere we go he asks to take his lightsabers and everytime we go to a new store he says, "Mommy can we get another lightsaber?"  Having Star Wars on Netflix has been a welcomed change to our nighttime routine and Alex loves it!  I do believe this will be our pick you won't find out until I make Alex's invites!

My Favorite Apps (For Moms)

 Since Monday I covered some of our favorite funtime apps for Alex I thought it would only be fitting to cover some of my favorite apps other than the expected like Facebook and Instagram.

So let's dive right in.  Since you all know I am a photographer as my side job one of my absolute favorite apps on my phone is the Lightroom app.  If you don't know Lightroom is an app you can use to edit photos.  The thing I use them for mainly is cropping and adjusting the exposure.  I think most of the Instagram filters are too muddy so I like to go into Lightroom on my phone to edit my pictures there and then upload them to social media.  It is free to download the app I believe.

 

One of the other apps I have had on my phone a very long time is Groove Book.  I am in love with this app!  It allows you to select 50-100 pictures monthly to be printed into a booklet with perforated pages for $4.99.  Since I am ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE at printing my own pictures this is my saving grace! It may just be the only way my family members have gotten any pictures for the last 2 years.  

 The Etsy app is one of my other most visited apps.  As you all know I am obsessed with my planner and love to put stickers in there.  Well this is where I find all of them.  Why would I get out of bed to sit at my computer when I have the ability to shop in bed, in my pajamas and in the middle of the night.  I have a lot of late night purchases that have been made that turn out to be my favorites.  But I don't just use this app to shop for me but I also shop for Alex's birthday's here. 

This next one is Weatherbug.  You may or may not know that I am absolutely terrified of thunderstorms.  One of my irrational fears is being involved in or close to tornadoes.  I am talking like panic attack and a really upset stomach.  I have had a few news station apps to keep me up to date on weather but I wind up never checking them and they don't send me alerts when there are new alerts.  So I really love this app.  I am able to personalize it to my area and tell it what alerts I want it to send me and what I don't really care to know it won't tell me. 

But ultimately my most visited app is my bible app.  I have chosen the YouVersion Bible app and I love it for a few reasons.  It lets you take notes, highlight, and has reading plans you can follow.  One of my other favorite features in this app is that you can search for a key word and it will pull up all of the verses that contain that word in it.  I love my paper bible so much more but it is so nice to be able to sit down anywhere and spend time in God's word.  

Tell me your favorite apps!  I am always looking for new ones to explore and fall in love with.

My Favorite Apps (For Alex)

Today I thought I would spend a little time and detail some of my favorite fun apps for Alex.  We recently have been working in some new educational apps so I don't quite have favorite apps just yet.  But once I have some favorites I will share them with you.  

I just want to add a precursor that we strictly limit Alex's screen time and we closely monitor and often are sitting right next to him if he is on our phones. 

This might be my top favorite!  Especially for long car trips or doctor's appointments, which I have had so many of lately.  It sure eats up a lot of data but it is nice to have all of Alex's favorite movies on hand to avoid meltdowns, when you connect to wifi it's free and it doesn't take up a ton of space on your phone unless you actually download the movies to your phone.   We have approximately 15 movies and I still have plenty of free space on my phone.  One of the other best parts is since we have a Disney Movie Club membership when we get a new movie through the club we get a digital download and can add it to our collection.

 Alex absolutely loves this cars app.  It's extremely interactive and he loves to develop the little city and get to meet more characters from the movies. 

Minion Rush, oh Minion Rush.  Alex would literally spend all day playing this if I would let him.  We have strongly limited his phone time lately to spend more time with flashcards and "school time."  But I think what might make me more upset is that he is so much better at it than I am.

 This is another cool app that Alex is beginning to get into this one a little more.  He gets so excited when the app "talks back" to him and encourages him to interact. Sometimes if he has trouble figuring it out he will get frustrated, so it's not his favorite but he is getting more into it.

This has been a tried and true favorite for a long time.  Since we don't have cable right now this is the way Alex watches tv.  He is absolutely hooked to PJ masks and Miles of Tomorrowland.  So we let him watch 1-2 shows a day depending on if he cleans his room and if he has good behavior. 

Baby on the Way (Not Mine)

My nephew is coming or here!  

Over the past few days I have watched my best friend exude strength and patience.  Childbirth is no easy feat and you have handled it with poise, although you may not think so.  I am so blown away by you as I sit and write this.  (You are currently sleeping in the bed next to me, resting up before the fun really starts.)  Even just in the 2 days you have been in the hospital thus far I have seen you turn into a mom.  Putting yourself last and that cute little baby first. 

It's amazing the transformation a woman makes when she goes from just a woman on the street to the mom of a perfect human being.  This is a transformation I would have never noticed until I had Alex and experienced it within myself.  I am beyond blessed to be able to recognize these changes within you and will gladly remind you of them each time you doubt yourself.  God placed that little baby in your care because He saw that you were the best mother for him and he is the best son for you.  

As I have told you the days to come will be gone in an instant, cherish them.  Each and every poop, spit up and booger will all have new meaning to you soon and I can't wait to share these memories with you.  Somedays will be really, really hard but I promise it will all be so worth it.  So so worth it.  

You are an amazing friend, sister, daughter, aunt, wife and now mother.  I am thankful you are such a great part in not only my life but also Alex's.  We absolutely cannot wait to watch that little stinker of your's grow but I am more excited to watch you grow in motherhood.

Now I am off to get in all the baby snuggles I can get!