My My My...

There is so much going on right now that I have a lot to talk about, but not much time to do it.

My job with the magazine that I work for is not looking too promising right now. I emailed my new boss a couple weeks ago to touch base and make sure I would still resume my assignments next month as stated in the maternity leave agreement, and she casually responded by telling me that other photographers were doing those shoots now going to be shooting both of the magazines that I have been photographing for 2 years! You might be thinking "She can't replace you during your maternity leave for no reason", but I am freelance, not employed directly by the company, so she legally can kind of do whatever she wants. However, ethically this would be wrong so I emailed the person above her and it's been all kinds of crazy office politics and mayhem ever since. I have a meeting about all this on Tuesday (she "stood me up" for our phone meeting this week, so we rescheduled). I should have more info though this coming week. You can pray for me, it's all been very difficult, but I know I've grown from this experience and it's not even over yet.

My little boy is going through some growing pains of his own. It's attack of the terrible twos and I am ready for it to be over. We are also potty training, so that's another topic I would love to expound on in the near future. Other than that he is doing great and still totally loving his new baby sister.

My midwife told me yesterday at my postpartum checkup that I've got to work on getting that gap closed up that happens from the separation of ab muscles during pregnancy. It's a pretty common thing for pregnant women, but you only have a small window of time before it becomes permanent and can get filled up with fat. Getting my body back after baby number 2 is a whole nother ball game. With Z I pretty much bounced right back. I know it's only been 8 weeks and it's only 10 extra pounds, but I've got a good size pooch that I would like to take care of so that I can fit back into my summer wardrobe.

Those are just 3 of the things going on in my life right now and topics that I hope to write about soon. For now it's time to get back to my offline duties as the messy mom.

Earth Day

Last year on this blog I celebrated Earth Day all week and said that I would make earth day an annual tradition for our family. So yesterday J and Z planted raspberry and blackberry bushes. Then this morning we got the kids all ready,

filled up our reusable bottle,

slipped into my "green toes" which are earth friendly shoes (thanks Hannah, I have gotten so much use out of these!)

and off we went to the Dallas Earth Fest.



I am no where near the status of die hard tree hugger, but I do care about the environment and I want to teach my children to be good stewards of this planet so that my grand children and great grandchildren can enjoy it just as much as we do.

Happy Earth Day everyone.

An Easter Full of Firsts

I still have not done an Easter blog post and there are so many things to store in the memory bank from that weekend that I'd better not put this one off any longer.

The day before Easter Z had his first egg hunt. It was a community wide deal at the local park and it was packed. We got there just in time for the 0-2 age group. There were so many kids and parents that Z hardly had a chance, but he did manage to snag a few eggs from some of the higher patches of grass. What shocked me was the parents that were zipping through gathering eggs for their toddlers. Some of them seemed to take it very seriously and almost pummeled over some kids. Then afterwards they furiously cracked open all the plastic eggs to see what they had collected. These were grown adults! It just blew my mind.

It was a beautiful day so afterwards we went to the lake to have lunch and feed some ducks, or as Z would say "we went to eat the ducks". He kept getting confused. It was hilarious.

On Easter Sunday we went to church. SJ wore a dress for the first time.

We had my mom do some snapshots of us in the backyard in front of the wisteria.


Unfortunately it was a gloomy day and the flowers look way better in real life.

Z was spoiled with baskets, eggs, and candy given to him by his grandparents. Even one of our neighbors put together a little easter basket for him.


I thought it was a wonderful way to celebrate SJ's first holiday and she must have agreed because to top it all off she ended the night with her first real smile!
*


*I didn't have a camera ready when she smiled for the first time, but I caught it a few days later.

Meet SJ

If you follow this blog at all you know that when I write I call my husband J and my son Z and since we have had this latest addition in our lives I have just been calling her by her name (Sedona) because S didn’t sound right. I thought about doing two letters, but all I could think of was "baby Sedona" or "baby sister", but "BS" was certainly not an option for my daughters nick name. This was almost as hard as choosing her real name (not really). Now that she is about to be 6 weeks old I think I've got it!

I watched The Blind Side for the first time last night. I know I am behind, but movie watching isn't exactly on the top of my list of priorities right now. Anyway, I absolutely loved it and in the film (and in real life) there is a boy named is SJ which stands for Sean Jr. and I liked the way it sounded and since it is her initials from here on out Sedona Jean will go by SJ. I am not worried about anyone seeing our names, I have talked about that before especially since I am no longer “writing for the masses” or participating in memes and blog carnivals. I have decided to keep the nicknames though because it’s easy, and I’ve been doing it for nearly two years now.

You’ll be hearing about SJ a lot these days because with Z he had his own website that I kept up with until he was two and so I am kind of substituting that with blogging. Here is a copy of the birth announcement we sent out of our little miss SJ...

A Week Later

I haven't posted in a week, and it's not that there is a lot going, I guess I am just busy adapting to a new way of life. Finding what I can accomplish and what rhythm works for me with having a newborn and a toddler. Yesterday was the first time I attended church on a Wednesday night since Sedona was born. The last time I was there on Wednesday night I was in labor. I haven't figured out how long it takes to get all 3 of us out the door yet, and so I decided to time myself. I set the timer I have on the fridge and started get ready. This morning I saw the timer and it was still counting. I had totally forgotten about it. Can we say frazzled mother?

It's been good though. I was so emotional yesterday that when my little boy was running around in a diaper and a tshirt I wanted to cry because he still has chubby legs and Flinstone feet, but it won't be long before he looses all of that baby fat. I cuddled with my little girl and I almost cried again because I love my kids so much. Then when my husband got home I made a late night run to get bread and milk. When I came home Z was on the drums and J was playing the guitar (while Sedona was strapped to him in the backpack carrier) and he sang the song he wrote and surprised me with at our wedding. That's when I finally lost it. I had been needing to shed tears of joy all day and so I just let it all out. It's a roller coaster ride of good and bad times in this life, but I don't ever want to take all of this for granted.

4 weeks, venturing out

This week was the first week since having the baby that I really got out of the house, besides doctor's visits and such. On Friday I went to H.E.B with both kids and lived to tell about it. Granted, it wasn't a full blown shopping trip, but I got several items from different areas across the store, and to me that is worth bragging about. Then Saturday we went to Joe T. Garcia's for my brother in laws birthday. This was our first time out as a family. Sedona slept the whole time as usual. We made it to church on Sunday even if it was over 30 minutes late. Monday I mailed out all the thank you cards and birth announcements, which was a big achievement then on Tuesday we took both kids to Z's eye appointment. The Dr. wants to examine Sedona's eyes around 10 months because of Z's history, but my prayer is that she won't have any problems. Lastly on Wednesday night we got a baby sitter for Z so that J and I could go to a concert, I'll post more on that later.

Sorry for the boring play by play of my 4th week postpartum, but it just goes to show that we are all doing well and I am starting to get back to life outside of the house, which makes me happy because I am a social creature.

This is the first week I didn't take any photos of Sedona, other than a couple on J's iphone. I hounded him to download them onto my computer today so that I had something to post. So here are a few pics from this week, thanks to my nagging.

Almost a month old!

Z at the eye doctor helping daddy carry the car seat

At the concert

Blurry, but cute