Icky Sickys

I hate being sick. Of course, I don't know anyone who really enjoys it. As the mama, I try to shield myself and my babies from what germs I can, but they still catch ya sometimes. And when they catch ME, they usually catch me good. I try to push through at first .. working harder than usual to keep up with the daily grind of our home. This will later bite me in the backside, as I ignore taking care of myself. This past week, this is exactly what happened. I had forgotten how much more work it is for mama to be sick with an infant. 2 weeks ago, when my boys were fighting the bug, I boosted my Vitamin C intake to try and boost my immune system and shielded Raia the best that I could. Then, Friday, it hit Raia and hard. My poor little girl is super congested and it is a struggle for her to even eat. Add on the fact that she pushed through her first tooth, she is just not so happy. Everything came to a wonderful emotional break down in the middle of the night on Saturday. I had finally gotten her to sleep at about 11 and fell into my own bed, EXHAUSTED! I was awoken to her screaming at 12:30 and tried (without success) to comfort her for about 30 min. Since she was going to scream whether I was holding her or not, I tucked her back into her crib and fell back into bed, crying myself to sleep to the sounds of my baby crying. Thanks to my wonderful hubby, I got some extra rest yesterday and my little princess slept much better last night. So here we are, onto another week, and although I feel like I am starting off 'behind schedule' as I didn't accomplish usual weekend cleaning activites, I know that I did what I needed to to take care of myself and my baby. Now to dump the toys in the tub to clean off the icky sickys! :)

Wanting my happy baby back soon!

Cupcakes

Yesterday we celebrated my son's 5th birthday with our families. Over the past week, as I made preparations for what I would make, I asked the birthday boy for his feedback. He listed off cakes he wanted, with a list growing to 6+ types of cake :). I let him choose the ice cream out at the store along with the type of kool-aid he would like. It was super fun allowing him to have a say. Saturday I started making the cupcakes, filling, and frosting; funfetti cup cakes with strawberry filling and strawberry cream cheese frosting, and chocolate cupcakes with whipped cream filling and buttercream frosting. I love making cupcakes and everything was coming together nicely, until the frosting. I got it all mixed together but it wouldn't set up like usual. I added powdered sugar and even let it chill in the fridge some before topping the cupcakes. To my dismay, nothing helped and while my cupcakes were frosted, the frosting spread out and ran over the sides instead of staying the peak like swirl I wanted. I quickly became upset with myself  for them not turning out like I wanted them too and was searching for the answer to what went wrong. I then discovered that the cream cheese I had grabbed for the frosting ended up being the fat free kind. What could I do? My son was just simply excited that I had made him cupcakes and that I put blue sprinkles on top. So, I sucked it up and knew that they would taste good anyways, so why worry. They can't all be perfect.

A Success Story

As mentioned in my previous post, I struggle with what I should write about. This week, it was like a light bulb clicked on: I picked the name for my blog for a reason, so I should write about just that. I love visiting with others and learning from and encouraging one another in the areas that we have in common. Therefore, I will be sharing the day to day of my 'exciting' life. :) I hope you enjoy!

My drive for perfection mixed with my cumplusive tendencies can really add stress to my every day life. This past week I was preparring for a sewing class that I was hosting in my home. Opening up my home has been a step for me since I have often felt that it is very small. However, since I know how important having fellowship with friends is in my life, the 'small' feel of my home is not as hindering. Monday and Tuesday, I busily worked on cleaning the house, getting a few supplies, baking some goodies, and mulitiple other activities. My list only seemed to grow instead of shrink, especially when you throw 3 wonderful kids into there :). By Tuesday night, I was pretty sure that I would be up all night. I was standing in the kitchen, looking at my list, exhausted from the day and having had to fight to get the boys in bed, when I let out a deep sigh. I looked around my little house seeing all sorts of 'messes' and looked back to my list. I grabbed a pen and starting marking things off, not because they were done, but because I realized that they weren't important. The 5 baskets of unfolded clean clothes had already sat in the kitchen for 2 or 3 days, so what was 1 more (now 3) stacked nicely, out off sight in our closet. After all, that is what closets are good for, right?

While this may seem like a very simple task to some, it was difficult for me, but what a great weight I felt lifted off my shoulders by simply telling myself that it was OK. I had also hoped to actually complete my project before my 'students' came over, but again, that just wasn't going to happen unless I wanted to stay up later. And besides, that was part of the fun with my friends, working on our aprons together. I had a wonderful day visiting with friends, helping them put together fun aprons, and listening to busy kids playing, without thinking about unaccomplished tasks or feeling exhausted.

This is one small success story for me. Thank you to my friends who shared their time and company with me Wednesday and didn't judge me or my little home!!