My Perspective

I've been really trying to focus on positivity lately. It's not coming as easily as it should, but I'm forcing it. I've been trying to focus on things that make me happy. This makes me happy:

A cup of coffee in the morning and breakfast with my girls.

 When my girls wear matching pajamas.

 Relaxing mornings. 

My girls.

I also love shoes and I love a good deal. I met one of my girl friends a few days ago for coffee, that makes me happy. 

And after talking for a while decided to just go look around the department store next door. We of course gravitated to the shoe department like any women would and we saw racks and racks of shoes with large 65% off signs that hung above them. Designer shoes for crazy prices, we could hardly contain ourselves. And then there were take an additional 40% off the lowest sale price signs. I thought the sticker price already reflected the additional savings, but just to clarify I asked the very young sales guy and when he told us that it was an additional 40% off the sticker, we really couldn't contain ourselves and screamed. 

That makes me happy. 

We hid behind the racks and laughed belly aching laughs for a good 10 minutes because the young kid probably thought we were crazy. I then may or may not have purchased these three pairs of beautiful shoes. Please try not to judge that these material things bring me happiness, because it's true that they do.

Another thing that makes me happy is of course receiving fun things in the mail that don't have a pay by date on them. I have been planning Riley's birthday  and am so excited when these labels came in the mail today from this cute Etsy shop. I'm pretty obsessed and was going to wait to reveal all the details of the final party later this month after we have it, but I just can't wait. Here is one of the party favors:

I think I missed my calling as a child party planner and have already claimed the girls' childrens' party planning authorities. Happy Monday and hope you can focus on the things that make you happy.

Art Party Planning

I was reading through my blog the other day looking back at old posts, and I have really fell off the blogging bandwagon. Over the summer I blogged all the time and I loved going back and rereading and remembering those memories. I need to get on it.

So I passed my state boards two Mondays ago and I was desperately naive and thought it would be the last nursing test I would have to take ever again in my life (unless I myself, chose to go back to school). I thought I was free, but I was wrong. I have been in nursing orientation for two days and have already had to take two tests. The instructors could read my face like a flashing read sign, because as soon as they made the announcement and glanced at me, they proceeded by reassuring us that it was really nothing to worry about.Only that you could only miss one answer on one of the tests, and the other being timed with a lot more questions than minutes. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that the profession of nursing will forever hold tests and that it will always create some degree of stress in my life. If I show up tomorrow and have to take another test though I'm not going to be cool with it, because I should probably be studying or something instead of blogging. Story of my life.

It is very nice to have all this additional free time instead of writing papers or schoolwork and our family is adjusting to the new routines and changes we've being experiencing. I have had more time to do things I enjoy like planning Riley's 5th birthday party. I cannot believe that this will be her 5th one. I sound like a broken record but time just travels at warp speed. Here is a little sneak peak of the party planning I've been doing.

Can you tell what any of it is? We are having a Rainbow Paint/Art party for her 5th birthday.

I am a little obsessed with the party favors and may just keep them all for myself to swoon over.

Also to update on our family's leap of faith. It did work out for us and although my husband did not get the job he interviewed for that I talked about him having the interview for, he was hired for another one and started this week. He's working normal hours again that works so much better for our family than what he was working and now gets the whole weekend off. Such a blessing for us. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm so happy to get started on spending our weekend as a family together. 

Seasons

Everyone experiences seasons in their lives. There are the highs and the lows and the in-betweens. I have been told by many, and read in many places not to rush the seasons and to enjoy them for what they are. In hopes of not sounding super negative lately, I think I've enjoyed the most I could have ever enjoyed this season. I'm ready to move on. Move on and start a new season. So that I am.

I am excited that our family is finding a new routine from what we are used to and all this recent change may just become our new normal because I think we're getting pretty good at it. We are doing well at adapting and making do with our situations. My husband and I took a leap of faith (some may call irresponsibility, we're calling it a leap of faith) and he quit his job. He has an interview in the morning and we are very hopeful that this will allow us the opportunity to spend more family time together and have our Saturdays together again as well.

The girls are also staying home full time now and are out of preschool until the fall when Riley will start Kindergarten and Raigan may or may not go back. We haven't decided. Until then we'll enjoy late morning breakfasts at our kitchen table every day of the week. 

In the middle of this crazy season in our lives we have been in cheer mode. Riley began on an All Star Cheerleading squad in the fall and they had their first competition last weekend.  It wasn't so much a competition as it was an exhibition for her squad since they weren't judged or awarded. I was a little apprehensive about this whole thing when we began because I didn't want her to commit to something that was too competitive and time consuming since she is so little still. I felt a little nudge for one reason or another to just go ahead and do it, and we joined the squad. She keeps up with her 5, 6, and 7 year old teammates like a natural. They only practice one day a week and it's fun for her.

Just from the fall till now her skills have improved so much, not just cheerleading but listening skills too. She is so dedicated to being a part of her team, listens to her coach, even tells me that she tries and works really hard. Pretty impressive for a 4 year old. Sometimes I do feel like I'm talking about or posting pictures of a little girl that is way older than her age. I'm really proud of this little girl.

They did a really good job last weekend and it was nice for them to have a trial run without the pressures of competing yet.

That was last Saturday which was followed by a horrible illness that I was the only one in our family to get, thank goodness. It was pretty bad horrible and lasted for days and there was even one point where I was so disoriented in my dehydrated weakened state that I text my husband and told him to pull the plug. Luckily there was no plug to pull and I survived it to write this blog post. I was really worried that I was going to be so sick still and miss the cheerleading competition this weekend that everyone has been so excited about all season. After two doctors visits and enough fluids to resuscitate a large animal I recovered enough and our family ventured a little mini vacation to Louisville, Ky.

I remember going on soccer tournaments when I was little and staying in a hotel with the whole team and those times are some of my favorite childhood memories. I think staying in a hotel room is so fun under any circumstance, but especially so when there are little cheerleader friends just down the hall. A hotel room is a true place to relax for me too because there's nothing to have to clean or any laundry to do. Our little family just moves right in and makes ourselves at home. I love that our girls get to make these memories too even though I think Riley has stayed in more hotel rooms than I did my entire childhood.

 The girls stayed up super late and we had to wake up super early at 5am to curl my girls hair. Some of the other girls had hair pieces that just went right onto their ponytail and although I feel like I would officially be one of those crazy cheermoms that deserves their own reality show- think Toddler and Tiaras- it sounds way easier. We used an old fashioned curling iron and enough hair spray to maintain the curls through a hurricane. Here's my girls all natural hair curled up with a huge cheerleading bow.

I think the girls knew that they were competing this weekend because they brought it (I'm officially a cheermom after saying that). They did the best performance that they have ever done.

That's my Riley in the center back row. 

There's Riley at front and top of the pyramid!

And here she is tumbling upside down.

They won 1st place in their division.

Raigan wasn't really impressed with Riley's win though because she somehow slept through the majority of the competition. I was pretty impressed because the cheer music was very loud and overpowering, but I guess waking up at 5am for cheerleading isn't for her.

Waiting on awards.

After the cheerleading competition festivities we made our way across the state for my nephews 1st birthday. He was so stinkin cute and devoured his little smash cake. It is truly hard to believe that he is somehow a year old already and that time keeps going by so fast.

Here is his awesome guitar birthday cake and he even had Kanya West show up to perform:

It was such a fun weekend packed full of cheerleading, birthdays, family, and memory making. I'm glad that this is how we are starting off this new season. Things are only moving in the up direction and I'm starting to finally allow things to happen the way they are supposed to instead of thinking the only way is the way I think it should go.