New Year.... New blog post.

Well, well, well. Remember when I wrote 2 blog posts? With every intention of keeping up with that shit? Second baby. That is what happened. August 3rd, I gave birth to my ridiculously cute, chunky, food lovin', insomniac of a son. Long story short, we are still figuring this whole thing out. Do we ever figure it out, moms? The word "BALANCE" runs through my messy and chaotic brain 1000x a day. I just can't seem to get some fricken BALANCE in my household. I see all these moms with even MORE kids then I and they're totally rocking it... "oh play date today? how about some Jillian Michaels this afternoon? Oh look I made 10 glittered mason jars and taught my daughter how to read" all while looking fabulous and having well behaved children. So, I started thinking to myself.... there has to be a secret to this chaos. If they can do it, then f#&king rights, I CAN TOO.

              My new years resolution was to find this mysterious super power called "balance". New years day came around and I woke up thinking "this is it! today is going to be awesome! we are going to clean out all those closets, I am going to bake that fricken banana bread AND i'm going to BLOG"
Unfortunately, Nolan didn't catch the new years resolution memo and decided it would be a great time to not only give me a whole lotta sleep, but graciously allow me to not put him down ALL day. January really sucked. People I wanted to see, and wanted to get together with... I just wasn't able to. Things I NEEDED to do, I either did them BARELY or didn't do them. Nolan would have a crappy night of sleeping and I would be lagging ALL day. My poor husband. My poor friends. My poor daughter. POOR ME!  (don't worry - I won't complain this whole blog post)

             I realized that the only person who can "change" this was me.  It wasn't even necessarily channggginnggg things... it was just changing my attitude towards myself. Learning to say NO to things so I didn't overwhelm myself with stuff that wasn't important to me or my family. Learning when to fricken shower so you don't hear the baby crying and your daughter getting into something in the kitchen (night time, ladies) Learning how to survive the day from a sleepless night. Learning to be POSITIVE! And I think I have it some what figured it out??(haha! nope) The truth is, I had to come to terms with the fact that I am only human and I CAN'T do everything. And that is OKAY. I have mentally made a list of things that are important for me to do during the day and everything else can just wait. At the end of the day, all that is important is that my family is healthy, and happy..... and that I have just a tiny little bit of sanity left to drink a glass of wine with out crying over it. I have gotten back into the swing of photography and that feels amazing. Something to set me aside from the hustle and bustle of being a mom all day.
           Self- love.... it goes a long way. That's what I WASN'T doing in those first few months of baby haze...... taking care of ME. That makes a whole world of a difference in a person's attitude. So, moms.. take care of YOU.  Love yourself like Kanye loves Kanye, It is okay.
    I was born to be a mom and I love this life and my babies... but that doesn't mean that it will be easy. We need to all accept that more.


    So here it is. The NEW blog post that took me 2 months to write. It feels pretty good and I can't wait to share all the funny stuff that's been going on in our life... and the serious.

- How to "survive" camping at 35 weeks pregnant. -

       

           Over the long weekend my family and I decided to do some deep mountain camping. In a tent. In the middle of nowhere. Yes, we are still one of the few families that tent with a kid. We have no desire to buy a trailer, tent trailer or any of those fancy things, And Zoe loves it!! We asked her what she wanted to do for a "big family vacation" as our family will be growing by 1 soon and it won't just be the 3 of us.  Zoe replied to that question with the exact words "I want to sleep in a tent and go fishing" THANK GOD she forgot about those Disneyland commercials cause camping is EASY. Sort of. 35 weeks pregnant and we trekked off for our big mountain adventure full of hiking, fishing and exploring. Here are some of the things I learned along the way that may come in handy in case you ever decide you want to be a crazy person and go 100 km from the nearest town & service area WHILE you are cooking a live one in that belly.

1) BUSH PEE.
           I did NOT think this one through. Not one bit. The reason we tent is because we like to go to areas that are not maintained by a park ranger. We like to explore a spot, and if we find somewhere to pitch a tent then that is where we sleep. So obviously NO OUTHOUSES. (if you are one of those that have a trailer, then you will never run into this problem) Do you know how hard it is to squat in the middle of the bush, while trying not to get pee on you? Try that, but with a big giant belly making you completely off balance. My advice is to find a tree you can hold onto. You might get stuck and you MAY need assistance from your significant other - but that's what husbands are for. Right? LUCKILY, my husband is quite the gem and he found a user maintained spot, completely empty with a fricken outhouse! Right in the middle of the forest there was a fricken outhouse!!!!!!!

2) COFFEE
           With my first pregnancy I stayed away from caffeine completely, but this time around there was just no way I would survive the day without killing someone/something with just a little bit of coffee.
   You know what they don't have in the middle of the forest? A microwave. So sit the F@#% down and drink it while its hot, cause you are not going to be able to reheat that one cup of coffee 20 bajillion times in the 2 hours it takes to drink it in the comfort of your own home. So what if your child is running through a probably cougar infested field, just drink that warm coffee.

3) A WORKING AIR MATTRESS
           Now i know what you are thinking. "You went camping and didn't even check to see if your air mattress was working? Wow, you're dumb." K but, we did. We spent an entire afternoon spraying stupid amounts of soapy water on the stupid thing and patching up the teeeeeeeeeny tiny little holes we did find.  Little did we know, our $50 Walmart special is a total piece of shit after 3 years of heavily camping. So, lesson learned. Don't buy that sort of stuff at Walmart. Just don't do it.
  Pregnant or not, anyone would have hated the sleep we had the first night. (unless you are Zoe, who woke up saying how AWESOME her sleep was) If your husband is as handy as mine is then they will go out in that forest and find PILES of moss. Comfy, and pillow-y piles of moss. He will then lay it down all evenly and place the tent over top of the moss bed. Voi-la ! Natures air mattress.

4) FOOD
             Food. The most important thing to a pregnant women other then kegels. Make sure you are loaded on the foods you have been craving. Unfortunately, there is no 7-11 in the mountains.
   I had the WORST craving for a slushee almost the ENTIRE time we were out there. Damn you, sugar & chemical laced slush. Damn you.

5) DON'T FORGET SOME FACE WASH
      It's one thing to feel like a cow/whale/hippo/bear/horse/etc. but it's another to feel ALL of those and grungy from being "one with the great outdoors".
   I forgot my face wash. So, i felt all kinds of beautiful out there. Luckily, I remembered my tooth brush so my teeth were totally rockin' some confidence.

6) FIGURE OUT HOW MANY TIPS YOU WERE GOING TO DO
        uhhhhhh, yeah. 5 tips are good, right??

7) NOPE, REMEMBERED ONE MORE
             Look at me go!!! The 7th tip on surviving some rough camping at 35 weeks pregnant is..........DON'T DO IT. Buy yourself a package at the spa and send your family off in the woods. They will probably be happier about it and believe me when I say YOU will be happier about it! As much as I love how my family has a love for being out in the mountains and the memories we make with Zoe doing those sort of things with her..... I am kicking myself in the ass for not having a spa weekend. Literally.

Billey, out.            (that sounds so much better when Ryan Seacrest does it)

What is this? Blogging? Am I blogging?

Look guys,  I'm blogging! I have started a blog. Hardy Har Har, I'm a blogger.

Since I will have an infant stuck on my boob (hopefully 40 more days)  and a gorgeous little 4 year old daughter who feeds me material that might one day make us famous, I figured... what the heck! lets do it! lets blog! So, Welcome... to my blog. blog post? internet? Am I doing the "internet"?

First Step!

So the first step in starting a blog (cause i'm OBVIOUSLY an expert now) is figuring out a name. Your domain name. The freakin' NAME! I was SO stumped. I didn't want to pick something like "I'm a mommy" or "I like to work out" or "#yolo I like wine".. I wanted something that was .... eye catching, kind of funny, and not stupid. I kept asking Justin (my "hilarious" husband) and he just looked at me like "why would you even ask me such a question that doesn't involve beer, fishing, the outdoors, and anything else "man" related."   Thanks, babe.

    Well, a couple days later the said husband and 4 year old daughter were ganging up on me (hurry up, baby boy! things need to be even around here) and driving me just absolutely CRAZY and Justin looked at me and said "They are trying to drive me crazy! - BAM! nailed it! blog name! I'm just fueling for your blog... you're welcome!!!!". I didn't really like it, (too long) but it became this joke in our house "Just fueling for your blog - best husband ever". And one night it hit me while my brain was on total overdrive and everyone else was soundly sleeping (don't you hate that? helloooooo! why am i the only one in this house who thinks of everything and anything and you guys are just SLEEPING!!!!) - For The Love Of My Sanity!!!!!!

I Feel Like I'm Somewhat Sane?

Right? Sometimes as a mom and wife you really can feel so far from "sane" it feels like you should be put away in an insane asylum just for like 5 minutes to hear your thoughts maybe? drink hot coffee? (do they serve hot coffee to you in there?) buuuuuut some days you feel like you really have it going on. You are organized (mind & household), you are crafting with your littles, you are feeling like the best mom EVER and it all could have started with something so simple that if you just did it everyday then everyday could be like that. lol - just kidding, that never happens. In this blog - MY blog - I want to share the good, the bad and the ugly. And at the same time hope someone reads it and actually ENJOYS it (Hi Mom) If there is anything I have learned in my 4 years as a mom, its that not everything is perfect, not everything is sunshine and butterflies and stupid rainbows. And not everything HAS to be about your kids. Heck, i might write a blog post one day on how much I love wine. (light bulbbbbbb, excuse me while i write that genius idea down) 

Bottom Line.... 

Bottom line is this is where i will be sharing everything, from loosing that baby weight, to a really neat DIY, to a really good review on a product (winnneeee), to how much i love my husband, then a totally separate one of how he irritates me, how much i love food, about my little Zoe and soon about my baby boy!!! We are all surviving here, and finding ways to still be "us" and not just "mom" or "my old lady" and this is going to be my new "outlet" and I am very excited to start this. Now, how do i sign off on this thing? End blog? Is that what they say? And BREAK!? That's a wrap? Mic drop? ahhh, screw it.