Finding a Balance

It's quiet.  The boys are in bed and the only thing I hear is the humming of the fan next to me.  It's a great time to reflect and think.  Over the past few years, I've had a hard time finding a good balance.  You see, I tend to spread myself too thin.  Realistically, I work 2 jobs between ultrasound and blogging, and that doesn't include the job of a mom which is another full time job.  Then I find myself immersed in hobbies like exercising, or wasting time on Facebook and other social media websites.  A few weeks ago, I told Marshall I needed to set some goals.  I've never been good at prioritizing, keeping my house clean, spending enough time with my boys.  I've always been good at saving things until the last minute and being lazy.  I definitely dislike it when I look back on a day and feel failure because I didn't get anything accomplished and the boys watched too much TV.

So, as part of goal setting, I needed to find a balance.  I downloaded an app on our computer and my phone called Wunderlist, and I started making lists.  I have a list of daily housework, a list of weekly housework, and a list of blog posts.  Then I started scheduling things out on the calendar.  I realized how quickly the boys were going to be out of school and was determined to do a lot of fun things with them.  So I'm making lists and being structured.  This is a BIG thing for me.

Over the last 2 weeks, my laundry has been caught up every day, my kitchen clean for the most part, the rest of the house in pretty good order.  I've given myself allotted times to blog and social network,  time to exercise and time to be with my boys.  I've created a calendar of what we will do each day of the week all summer long, made quiet themed boxes for them and planned hour by hour.  I've spent more time playing, coloring, snuggling and being active with my boys.  It's a great feeling.

I know a new baby is going to throw the balance off a little bit when she comes, but for now I'll call this a little victory.

26 Weeks

Just a little update at 26 weeks!

Taekwondo

It seems like over the past year or so, we've been experimenting in finding something that Chandler really likes to do.  He's so/so with sports.  He likes it ok when he gets there, but is never over enthused about it.  I don't want to push him to do things he doesn't really want to.  He is playing coach pitch right now and we are going to leave sports up to him after baseball.  In the meantime, we are trying to find something else that might work.  He was excited at the thought of trying Taekwondo so we went to a few introductory lessons which he liked and seemed to do well in.  Today was his first real lesson in a class with other kids.  I asked how he liked it and he said it was boring and hard.  I'm sure because it's new that it's hard.  The other kids in the class have been going for a while and know the drill.  I told him to give it 3-4 months and it might grow on him.
He was pretty excited about getting his uniform.  I think it makes him feel more official.

Feeling Behind

Do you ever have so much to blog that you don't even know where to start?  That would be me.  Since I blog as one of my jobs, sometimes I'm worn out by the time I get to this blog.  At the same time I don't want it to suffer because it's my family blog and essentially my journal.  The first few months that I was pregnant, I didn't take on a lot on my other blog because I was just so tired, sick and had no motivation.  Now that I've gotten some steam back, I've overbooked myself a bit.  It's hard when there's a lot of good opportunity coming my way and I don't want to say no.  I'm hoping that in the next week, I'll be able to get a bunch of posts up here and get caught up, but just in case I don't it's because my other blog  is time consuming.  Until then, I'll leave you with some cute pictures of the boys.  In about the last year, I've become a little obsessed with Gymboree.  I'd say that a good 70% of my boy's wardrobe is Gymboree and Nova's closet is already overflowing with it as well.  So I was super duper excited to get to work with them.  Here are the boys showing off some of their new summer duds.  Cute boys, I love them so much.

24 Weeks

24 weeks!  I was looking back at some of my pictures at 23-24 weeks with the boys and I feel like I look pretty comparable.  I've gained more weight though than I had with the other two at this point which is discouraging.  Hopefully it evens out and I don't put on an excessive amount in the 3rd trimester like I normally do.  I talk about it in my vlog, but my starting weight was 138, I'm at 156 right now, so 18 lbs so far.  I'm definitely a lot bigger since 2 weeks ago.

Seeing Clearly

Back in January when I took Chan & Rowan in for well child visits, Chan had a hard time reading the bottom few lines of the eye chart. The Pediatrician recommended that I get him into the eye Dr. for a checkup to make sure he didn't need glasses. I put it off for a bit and finally made appointments for both of the boys this last week. Chandler kept telling me that he wanted glasses but sometimes I wondered if it was because some of his good buddies have gotten them recently. He was also telling me that he letters at school looked stacked on top of each other. After a trip to the eye Dr., it was confirmed that he did need glasses. He's around a -2.00 in both eyes. (I think one eye is a -1.75) but I can't remember which one right off the top of my head. It's funny because Marshall has almost the exact same prescription. Marsh has some extra glasses, so while we were waiting for Chandler's to come in, he wore Marshall's. I'm hoping that his eyes don't get too much worse over the years because my vision is really quite bad. I can't function at all without my contacts or glasses and would hate for it to be that bad for him. We went to Costco to get his glasses since the eye dr. wanted to charge a small fortune for them and we only have a vision exam included in our insurance. After trying on a bunch of frames, he settled on these.

His glasses came in today and we went to pick them up. Chan was so excited and he looks so handsome in them. We were out shopping that afternoon and he kept reading signs and things that were far away and it was really exciting for him. He is supposed to wear them all of the time except when he plays sports. I feel bad we didn't get him in sooner and wonder how long he's been struggling to see things at a distance. Here's to seeing clearer!