Attempting to be a Super Mom

Sandra, over at  Diary of a Stay at Home Mom  had blogged about going back to the beginning of her blog, and getting back to what she loved so much about herself and the blog.  It sounded like a good idea, and that's what I intend to do as well.  I want to blog about what's important to me, and what my family is up to. I also want to get back into projects with my kids.  I'm planning on bringing back Watercolor Wednesdays and Finger paint Fridays.  I would like to work on the alphabet with both Ben and Sydney.  We'll probably do a lot of the projects we've already done, but they are new to Sydney and will make sense in a different way to Ben than they did before.  I'm hoping to spend more time either at the park or at the pool.  I'd love to get the kids going to play dates as well as "field trips" like the zoo, the river, the capital, etc. I'm going to make my husband sit down with me and help put together a page I can be proud of.  ...

The other day, I was talking to my Aunt Marci on the phone.  We were talking about all of the changes we, and our families, have undergone in the last five years.  I couldn't believe the amount of change we'd had in our lives.  Sometimes it's easy to forget the transformation you've made, and you need to reflect to see how far you've come.  Today, I'm taking the trip back to see some big points from over the past 5 years. Warning: This will be a long post, with lots and lots of pictures. Five years ago, we had just moved into our lovely little house.  It was our first actual house as a couple.  We'd lived in apartments until this point, but were moving forward as a family and found a house that seemed meant to be. It was important to us to move to this house because our family was expanding as well.  Yup, we were having a baby. We spent a lot of time prepping for the baby, but didn't tell any family until we had already found out that...

Woohoo!  My husband fixed my computer this weekend so now I get to be back! Now, I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know where to begin.  This is a crazy house and there is always a million things going on, so I guess, I'll just dig in with the biggest and most life changing. On my last big update post (that you can find  here ) I mentioned a strange reaction to the heat I seemed to be having.  If you follow me on Facebook, then you already know this, but as it turns out, I'm not experiencing a strange reaction other than PREGNANCY!!!!  We were so super nervous when we first found out since Sydney is now only 18 months old, but now we are so excited.  I was still nursing Sydney regularly and I was on the progesterone only pill so I didn't have a real period.  Because of this, the nausea was just passed off as heat related, especially since during the afternoon it was in the 80s in our house with the air on.  A couple of people made comments that...

Let me start this post by saying that both of my children make me very proud every day. Now, maybe I'm a tad over protective, but I'm sure there are a lot of other parents out there like me.  I monitor what my children watch on TV and just how much TV time they get.  In a given day, there is no set amount of time they are allowed (mostly Ben right now because most of the time Sydney still doesn't notice it exists) to watch TV.  It's dictated by health, behavior, weather, etc, so some days they watch more than others.  One thing that doesn't change is what they are allowed to watch.  I'm not just talking about the typical no violence, bad language, or sex things that I think 99% of parents can agree young children shouldn't be watching.  Keep in mind, Ben is 3 and Sydney is 15 months.  Everything they see on TV, they learn and they don't know the difference between real and make believe.  They are very impressionable.  I us...