My son Austin!

He is now ours forever!  20 minutes in court and we were done!  I've not been able to show you his pictures before today so I wanted to catch you all up:)  We did change his name to Austin officially yesterday.  He really had no idea why we were in court or what was happening which I think was great.  I'll update and edit this post later but I'm just really excited to share him with you all!  So here you go, meet my son!

 On April 29, 2009, this chubby little bundle of joy came home with me at 5 months old.  He had a funny little name that was hard to pronounce and hard to spell so we settled on "Monkey" as his nickname:)

Right after our court hearing!  He wanted CAAAKKKEE, so he got cake:)

My adoption was finalized!!

It's done, it's official and is one of the best days of my life!!!! Tomorrow I will be introducing you to my son Austin!

Project Time! Birthday in a Box!

My sister lives in California and has for the past 8 years so I've missed 8 or so birthdays in a row so this year I decided I'd do the next best thing....make her a Birthday in a Box!!  Also, my wedding anniversary is her birthday:(  I know, how selfish of me right?  It just happened the year I was getting married that was the only Saturday available for a reception area so I called my sister and asked if she minded if we got married on her birthday.  Of course she didn't mind but I felt a little bad about it.  My sister LOVES purples.  I first thought of the wooden box after seeing this blog post, and the rest of the items I thought were pretty original.....until I saw another birthday box on Pinterest.com.  Oh well:)  I'm also making her this that I saw on Pinterest.com with maps of all the places that she's lived or are meaningful (such as the city she got married in).  Here's what I included in the box and click on the pictures to see better detail of the items if you'd like:
-White sparkly table topper with purple pom-pom trim
- Confetti felt garland
- Happy Birthday Banner
-Cupcake mix and recipe card
-Frosting recipe card
-Cupcake liners
-Birthday candles
-Sprinkles
-Paper plates
-And of course a birthday card



Next time I do one of these I'll plan it out a little better so that the presentation
when you open the box is a little more put together:)



I printed out a Vanilla Cupcake recipe and Vanilla Butter Meringue frosting recipe from Annies-Eats.com.
I included the dry ingredients for the cupcakes all measured out.  I'd like to have put them in a mason jar...but my box was too full already.  My other idea was to buy Sprinkles cupcake mix or Barefoot Contessa and included but again, not enough space in the box.

Here are the candles, Wilton Lavender Sugar Sprinkles, Martha Stewart Cupcake liners from Joann's Fabric, and paper plates from Target (in the future I'd like to find small plastic plastics that matched the color theme and Target usually has reasonable prices, but I was short on time).

My mom and I always make our own birthday banners from scrapbook paper and cardboard cut out letters (they come in a box at Michael's, these are white with sparkles)



Not a great picture, but you get the idea, it's a birthday banner:)

 

Awesome picture right? LOL.  I covered a toilet paper roll in scrapbook paper so I could wrap the garland around it.  This picture is probably not totally necessary but here you have it:)

Here's the felt garland.  I made this for my boys' birthday too and everyone loved it including my sister who insisted I leave it up for an entire week when she was here!   It's sewn together with clear thread on the sewing machine, super easy.  And the felt only cost about $3!  You can go here to the Purl Bee's website for DIY instructions.  Also, it's great because my sister can cut the lengths to whatever she wants and it won't come undone or fall apart:)

When I wrapped the garland it kind of looked like a flower, I thought that was kind of cool:)

Another pictures of the garland wrapped around the toilet paper roll:)

Terrible picture and lighting but here is the table cloth.  I bought sparkly white material and then purple pom-pom trim and sewed it on!  I might not do this again.  The trim was expensive....I'd probably make a table runner or just not include this item but hopefully she enjoys it:)





Here's the box!  It's a wooden box from Joann Fabrics but I also purchased a wood box from Michael's that wasn't as deep inside and it had a lid that comes all the way off.  I glued the card to the inside lid and then as you can see in the first picture of this post I wrapped it with wide ribbon and I super glued one of the cardboard white sparkly letters, C, onto the ribbon.





I'm Eating Cake

I'm officially an emotional eater and I just proved it by inhaling a big slice of German chocolate cake.  Ugghh.

I tried to be aware that I was emotional and not stop by Starbucks on my way home today even though I had tears welled up in my eyes but I made it home calorie free.

But then more emails came and my really happy day went to really bad really fast.

AJ's paternal Grandma who he hasn't seen since March 2010 and that was for an hour but hadn't seen him since May 2009 before that...for an hour....never sent a single birthday or Christmas card.....has come out of no where and decided today that I'm purposely trying to keep her from AJ and that I'm not following ICWA procedures.  She called up her tribe (who mind you is not the tribe that is representing AJ all along, only one tribe can at a time) and  now they are questioning my "cultural plan" for AJ and how I will keep him connected to his biological family. 

The point is, they really can say anything they want, but in the end it will not affect the outcome which is the state is allowing us to adopt him after 26 months in our care.  However, it could delay the final stamp of approval that is supposed to happen next week. OR, it could not delay but the grandmother has decided she wants to call and speak at the hearing.  You know, the hearing that is supposed to be an amazing family experience where the state declares us a forever family and makes AJ my forever son.  I'll be sitting there with friends and families while this lady chews me out in court.  I want to call her choice words right now.  I won't.  But I really want to.  Why would someone purposely ruin what should be such a great day?  And if she acts this way, that totally changes my previous thoughts on keeping in contact with her and driving 2 1/2 hours each way to see her next month.  All I can say to her is where was she the last 2 years?  Why now?  I think she's awful.  And the big piece of chocolate cake won't turn her into a nice person, but it seemed like an okay thing to do about 20 minutes ago:(

I Need A Fresh Start

I often think about what kind of life I want to live.  I want it to be more than thoughts and I want to see myself fulfilling my goals.  It's more about the lifestyle I want to live rather than goals really.  Yes I'd love to lose 60 pounds, yes I'd love to have X amount of money saved in the bank, yes I'd love to travel to this place and that place.  But what I really want is to live a day to day life that it is MY perfect world.

I'd love to consistently work out.  Not necessarily so I can lose a certain amount of weight but because I'd love to lead an active lifestyle.  Whether it's hiking more with the kids, going sea kayaking with my husband, running on the treadmill at the gym, taking the kids for a walk around the neighborhood, I just want it to be a part of my daily life.

I need to take down my YouTube videos.  There was a lot of talk the last couple weeks over Womb Tube and women sharing too much and most of my subscribers and people I watch were outraged and me, well not so much.  I tend to agree with a lot of the opinions.  I think ever since I posted my first video I in a small way regretted it.  I really was putting a lot of personal information out there.....yet NO ONE in my real life knows about it which means I don't really think it's the right thing to do.  I've also realized that I looked negatively on my real life family and friends because everyone on YT, especially in the infertility world, understood me where in real life it just felt like no one got it.  I couldn't find any people in my town to talk to or share ideas with so I turned to You Tube.  I get emails every week from people that watched all my videos and they thank me for sharing my story.  And those emails do make me happy.  But sometimes I feel like I don't necessarily want to make videos anymore.  Videos of what?  Here's my favorite baby toys, here's my kids reaching their milestones, here's me at the park with my kids.  It just seems silly to me sometimes.  Why even post that on  You Tube?  Is that really going to be life changing for anyone to watch that and is it just wasting my time that should be used towards other things in my life that are important to me?  I also think I tend to hold my YT friends to a different standard than IRL friends.  IRL friends are expected to call you periodically, make plans to go out to lunch, invite you to their birthday, show up to your kids' birthdays etc. Yet YT friends are what, expected to watch and comment and that's why they get you so much??  I do love that I've met some wonderful gals through YT.  Shel comes to mind right away, yet I know we will both keep up with each others blogs even if I take down YT:)

I watch too much crap TV!!  And I don't judge any of you that watch it because I've watched the Real World on MTV since it first aired, I was still in Elementary school!  I watch all the Real Housewives too!  And sometimes I watch and think, this really is a waste of time....only because I don't finish certain projects because I watch HOURS of reality TV!  So I'm not saying I'll never go back to watching it but for the next 3 months, I'm going to stop watching Real Housewives, Real World, Duggars, and Kate plus 8....just to see if I use my time in better ways and I'm happier....if not or if I decide to watch it again then so be it.

I want to craft more and complete projects in my house.  I really do love doing projects.  I did 4 different projects for my husband's Father's day gifts and I really enjoyed it!  I'd love to do more things like that for birthdays and Christmas but I always seem so short on time (too much TV watching!).   My house is only 5 years old but there are parts that don't quite feel homey that I need to work on and there are parts that are certainly falling apart that need attention so when the kids go to bed, I'm going to work a little bit on that stuff.

I want to try working from home for a month.  I currently rent an office in a large building but I'm just not that happy there.  We have the worst secretaries that never greet me, are rude to my clients and even my peers sometimes ride the elevator up or down and don't even say hi. It's so strange to me.  And people in my office just seem so fake lately so I spend too much of my time thinking about their short falls instead of worrying about my own business.  It's not a good feeling to NOT want to go to the office.  Why I haven't worked from home is A) I think in general people are more productive in an office environment and easily distracted in a home office and B) I felt guilty if my kids are at my mom's being watched if I was still at home yet I can't have them home and get work done or even make calls so I can't be a stay at home/work from home mom.   The hardest part in making the decision to work from my home office was to decide to still send my kids to daycare (AKA my mom's).  I pay my mom regardless of how many hours she watches them and for 5 months this year she got paid for not watching them at all so I should let go of the guilt.  I've set some goals for what I want to achieve in my business in that  month and either I make my goal or I go back to the office so I'll keep my office space for the coming month and if it works out, I'll give up my office after the month is over.

Obviously this month has been an extremely hard time in my life.  When something that awful happens it makes me reevaluate what changes I need to make.  There are many areas of my life that I have control over and yet I'm not controlling them the way I want to.  I do have to say that the past week has been really great.  I could have totally botched Father's Day for my husband but I really made a good effort and it was awesome because he is a good dad and it needed to be celebrated.  We are both making good efforts to help each other out and less effort intentionally trying to pick a fight.  Hopefully it's a fresh start for us and maybe these few changes I'm going to make get me some of my happy back:) 

Weekly Weight Watchers Weigh In: Big Gain

At least I went, that's all I can say, is I didn't skip and instead faced the scale.  Current weight, 188.8.  I was 186 just a few weeks ago.  One thing I promised myself is that I won't quit Weight Watchers this time even if it means I don't see a loss or I have a gain.  By now I usually would have quit because I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted.  I admit, I've been going to Starbuck's 3-4 times a week and besides not being very healthy, it's expensive!!!  So that needs to stop.  This will be the first week in about 4 weeks that there is not a holiday, birthday celebration or house guests to cook for or eat out with so I'm hopeful it'll be a good week!

I've got a menu written out, I'm working on calculation points in the recipe builder for some of our dinners and I'm trying to commit to going to the gym every day....even if it's only for 30 minutes. 

I turn 30 in about 3 months and I want to lose 30 pounds by then.  It's a lofty goal but it really is something I want to do for myself.  I just need to look at each week and stay on track.  Hope everyone has a great week!

I get to be a SAHM for a week!

My parents are flying to California tonight for a week long visit with my sister so that means I get to stay home with my boys!!  Don't get me wrong, I love having my career and I'm thankful I can rearrange my schedule for a week to not meet clients during the day, but I also love spending time with my  boys with no obligation of going to work:) 

Father's day is coming up so here are some projects I'm planning on working on with the boys (Click on the Pictures to go directly to the website with directions!).  I'm getting my Dad a dutch oven for camping and I think I'll make him the rootbeer sampler and the clear goody tie boxes with cookie inside.

Super Dad Banner and Card

Rootbeer Sampler

Cookie/candy boxes with Tie (I'll make him his favorite cookies instead of fudge!)

Handprint Frame

Dad Photo Frame (I'm going to try black poster board and cut out the shapes, maybe)

Free Printables (not sure where to use these, but I'll think of something!)

Super Hero Dad Box.  This is awesome and I made it for my Dad as a gift from my kids last year!  It went together quickly and looked so great!!  I'm not making it again this year but wanted to post it in case you needed a great, inexpensive idea!

ADOPTION HEARING SCHEDULED!!!

Our adoption hearing was supposed to take place in August.....but our lawyer's paralegal was able to get us in in less than 2 weeks!!  I'm a little bit worried to get too excited about the exact date because there is a chance something can come up in the hearing (such as the tribe asks for more time even though they have not been involved in over 2 years) but it's still a big step!  And if everything goes well then it will be finalized and we will be changing his name and of course he will have OUR last name!! 

June Favorites

I love reading people's favorite lists on their blogs so I decide maybe I'd start doing this on a monthly basis!  If you have a favorites list or something you want to share, comment below!

1.  Pinterest.com

It's addictive!!  I love the Food and Drink, Kids, and Home and Furniture sections the best!

2.  J.R. Watkins All Purpose Lemon Spray

I bought Method brand all purpose spray and it was Lemon Verbena, OMG, the stuff smelled like Oregano.  It made me nauseous so I tossed it out and was at Target and picked this up for $3.99.

 3. Essie nail polish

I will blame Katie at Cleared For Takeoff for this new little obsession.  I thought Essie was some cheap knockoff nail polish but I decided to give it a try and I LOVE the colors and how smooth they go on!  I already own 3 but I don't get manicures so I'm willing to spend $8 on a bottle.  I bought mine at Walgreens and Target.

4.  Target Plastic Salad Set

Now that it's summer, I like to be able to take a salad (fruit, green, pasta, etc.) to picnics, potlucks, my parents house, even camping (that's when I first used it this weekend) and this only set me back $4.99 at Target!  I always used to lug one of my serving spoons and hope it made it back with the bowl, but this is super handy because they snap right on to the lid!

5. Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC

Have you been watching too??  I was the kid that almost always ate hot lunch.  My mom did not make me breakfast (most mornings I ate 1/2 of a Costco Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffing, OMG!) and did not pack my lunch, and I still love her, but I hope to pack my kids lunch when they go to school.  But this show is really eye opening into what is in a lot of school lunches.  There needs to be a big change to what is served to our kids at school.

6. Seventh House On The Left

I love Ashley Brown's blog about transforming her Virginia ranch home little by little into her own space.  I copied her guest bedroom linens in my guest bedroom (just need to but a couple more pillows) because I'm not creative, I just like to copy other people's style honestly:)  Our living room is set up very similar to this and I just love her taste!  I found her through Pinterest.com.  Check her out at http://7thhouseontheleft.com/tour/.

7.  iTot Cards Iphone App

My kids are both nuts for this app!  It's just flash cards broken into categories like food, animals, shapes, letters, numbers and so on and it speaks the word and for animals it also makes the sound of the animal.  It's great when we are at a restaurant but they say, "Apple!  Apple!" all the time meaning they want to look at the flashcards.  Dylan has a huge vocabulary and I think this has been a big part of it:)

We finally talked...

My Grandpa and his girlfriend left on Wednesday so when my husband got home Wednesday after his night class, I finally just told him we needed to talk.  He told me I'd already made up my mind so what was there to talk about it.  I told him whether we were staying together or getting a divorce we still had to talk about what was going to happen.

He admitted he'd never been so mad ever (I really hope he didn't mean ever, I can name several incidents in his life that were a million times worse than this before I ever came along, but in the moment, he was extremely mad).  I told him I'd never been so hurt either. 

We agreed that if either one of us felt like that would ever happen again in front of the kids, we needed to get a divorce because it absolutely cannot happen to them again.  For me the worst part while it was happening was that I begged him to stop and not do it in front of my kids and he wouldn't, it carried on for over 10 minutes.  He's taken a child psychology course and I know he knows how that affects kids. 

We did talk about divorce and he assumed that everything according to our state is split 50/50 including custody and bills/money.  I told him as young as our kids are and with his unpredictable schedule (sometimes working nights) and going to school 2-3 nights a week, it wouldn't even be feasible for him to have the kids during the week.  But I told him that just because logistically and financially taking care of two kids would be very hard, it wasn't enough of a reason to stay. 

I do still hold things against him that make it very hard to be happy in the moment.  I can't say it enough how hard PPD was on me.  I told him that when I finally admitted I had it, he threw it back in my face and kept saying I needed to call the doctor (which I did) but it was like it gave him permission to blame everything on my PPD.  I told him what I really needed was for him to say, "You just concentrate on the baby, I'll take care of the cleaning and cooking so you don't have to take time to do that, and you just relax.   I'll give him bottles so you can sleep more."  It was completely overwhelming to juggle everything on no sleep with a colicky baby and me with low supply issues.  My husband can let the house become a total mess and would still lay on the catch and nap.  I know everyone says just enjoy the baby and don't be so uptight about cleaning because you won't ever get that time back with your baby.  For me, to be relaxed and happy in my home, it has to be to tidy.  I can't look at piles of dishes, dirty counters, piles of laundry, dirty floors.  That ups my anxiety a million times.  So I'd do laundry all night long while my baby was up from 7pm-2am, I'd eat standing up and as fast as I could and never once did he say let me do this for you.  He even said that he was tired too because he worked and went to school 3 nights a week and then had to study at night.  WRONG.  He took that semester off.  I couldn't believe that for over a year, he was remembering the situation as that!! Blows my mind!!  That was the longest 4 1/2 months of my life.  And I still haven't forgave him.

So yes, I do need counseling.  You know there are times when I hold a grudge against my best friends for crap they did or said to me in junior high and highschool?  Yep, sometimes I think, 'Why am I even still friends with you?  You treated me like crap this time or that time.'  I mean seriously, it's been 10 or 15 years, get over it right?

My husband also thought he was helping me out by taking the kids to the park so I could have some me time.  I told him me time shouldn't be me doing laundry, going grocery shopping, preparing dinner, cleaning the house.  I told him he actually takes time away when he isn't helping me out (like yesterday when I cleaned the kitchen and living room spotless, within an hour I find 3 scrunched up paper towels-on the couch, by the kitchen sink, on the bookshelf, WTH??).  Or when I come home after he's been off work all day and it's 4:45 and he hasn't figured out dinner, that's stressful after I've been working all day.  I don't give a crap if he takes the kids for a walk a few hours later, you already stressed me out and while you are walking, I'm probably cleaning the kitchen.

But I have to say that when we went camping from Friday-Sunday, it was probably one of the best family trips we've had.  No fighting and bickering, a lot of laughs, and I was able to really enjoy my kids and my husband.  I think we need to go back to the chore chart, scheduled me time, and dates though but individually we really have to work on ourselves.  I appreciate all the input, even suggestions of books to read (I'm planning on buying the 5 Love Languages today) from everyone!

Weekly Weight Watchers Weigh In: Skipped It

No weigh in this week, instead my family left early Friday to go camping for the weekend and it's just been one heck of a week that waking up and being to the meeting before 7am to get weighed just wasn't on my radar. 

I ate like crap this weekend camping.  I mean awful awful awful.  You should have seen my groceries on the conveyor belt, it looked like a junk food hall of fame line up.  It was almost to the point of embarrassing.  Yes there was a bag of green grapes, some strawberries and a bag of oranges all of which went in the cooler and were never touched in 3 days!! 

I know to truly change the weigh I look at food and to really lose this weight I have to come to terms with the fact that when there are holidays, super bowl parties, camping, hosting a dinner party or Sunday dinners, I use it as a free ticket to eat all the junk I want and I really need to focus on healthy foods with  maybe a small splurge.  Because if I count up all the holidays, birthdays, trips out of town, get togethers, that allows me to eat really bad about 25% of the time!

Last night I thought it out and promised myself to get back on track today.

I turn 30 in October so my goal is 30 lbs lost from now until then.  It's a lofty goal, about 2 pounds per week but if I went to the gym 4-5 times a week it will be doable.  My life has got to change and I need to have more positive things happening so I need to take the bull by the horns and just DO IT NOW!

Breathing

I can finally breathe.  Nothing is "fixed yet" but the migraines have finally passed and I can breathe and make it through the day without crying.  My Grandpa just left and won't be back until Tuesday so hopefully my husband gets back from class at a decent hour and we can talk.  In my heart, I know I will stay now.  I can't promise it's forever and that awful therapist told me last summer you are either in or you are out of the marriage but that I couldn't expect it to work if I had one foot out the door headed to divorce.  At the time I agreed.  But I think I put myself in a tough place the minute I said I was in, all in, that allowed my husband and I to treat each other badly because I had already voiced that I would not leave.  This time has to be different.  I cannot let the fear of being without a partner or building a life as a single mom cloud my judgement of what my kids deserve which is to not be exposed to that shit storm that happened last week.  And what I deserve.  So I'm in, but it's conditional.

I was thinking this week about our friends and coworkers and it's amazing just how many people are divorced.  I can't even watch a movie anymore where the main characters aren't cheating or divorced.  It's like it's every where and it's very hard finding good marriage role models.  Maybe that's a small part of what I need.  To be around people that have healthy marriages.  There's a lot of stuff I need to do:)

Not Sure What To Do

Let me start by saying that having my Grandpa and his girlfriend fly in for a 2 week visit the day after I told my husband it was over was probably our saving grace.  Because I don't air my dirty laundry to my Grandpa and I definitely didn't want him to know my husband I were having problems so we played nice, kept the peace and were forced to be around each other A LOT.  But the bad part is my Grandpa is still here and we aren't able to get away and talk so we have still not talked about it but he is probably flying out to a cabin on Wednesday for a few days so that'll be our first chance at talking.

I'm really struggling with all of this right now.  I keep asking myself if I can get pass this, could we ever get back to being really in love and showing each other respect AND affection.  The affection part is really bothersome to me at this point because I feel like I'd just replay this whole event in my head and wouldn't even be able to lay next to him let alone having any intimacy.  I openly admit that when we started having to have timed sex because of infertility and timing of clomid, our sex life suffered immensely and I'm not sure if it would ever be the same once we got to that point.  I know some couples really enjoyed the baby dancing but it became a chore followed with disappointment 2 weeks later when I wasn't pregnant month after month.  And we definitely haven't recovered from it.  I thought maybe a few months after we had Dylan we would, but I was just not that new mom begging the doctor to give them a go ahead to have sex 6 weeks post partum. 

Marriage counseling last summer was awful and now it's getting thrown back in my face as I'm the one that got us kicked out and it is true that the counselor was talking to me when she stopped the session.  So I'm really not interested in doing couples counseling at this point.  It's a very vulnerable spot to put yourself in when you spill your guts and tell this one person more about yourself and your marriage than any other person in the world and when they don't get you on a path to a better marriage, it feels like betrayal of some sorts.

I would do individual counseling but no amount of counseling is going to teach me that the hurtful things my husband said or him throwing my salad spinner all the way across the kitchen (I know, sounds so stupid but I've just never seen him act that way.  Whatever made him think it was okay to grab it out of my hands and throw it against a wall while lettuce and the parts to it exploded everywhere, I'll never know.) was okay to do.  But I think I've been through a lot especially over the past few years and I'd rather work on myself at this point.  I'm still hurt by our marriage counselor last summer telling me that if I got a divorce, that I wouldn't find something better.  It didn't come with a big explanation and I thought she was going to add that I needed to work on myself first, but nope.  I mean I'm definitely not thinking of a divorce because I think I can just go find a better man but to have someone that knew me for all of 3 or 4 hours of counseling to make that judgement really hurt.  I really hope if I ever did get a divorce, that I could work towards a better life, I definitely deserve a better life and to be treated better.

It was traumatic for me to watch him pick up Dylan after I kept repeating for him to please stop, just stop, not in front of the kids and try to get him to stop yelling.  I said, "Dylan is scared.  Put him down and just stop, you can't do this in front of them."  You know what it's like having your husband yell at you in front of your kids and tell  you you are a bad mom over and over.  He did not physically hurt Dylan if you are wondering, he was holding him very gently, but emotionally, who knows what damage he did.  I can't even remember where AJ was, that's awful but, he must have been somewhere but he didn't make a sound.  I'm bawling even writing this. 

I always told  myself that if my husband cheated or hit me, I'd leave (and I'm not judging those that  have been in that situation and decided to stay still) so after all this happened I was completely confused.  I'd never thought about what I'd do if my husband did this.  It wasn't cheating, it wasn't physical abuse, but it was horrible so then what am I supposed to do?  It is difficult to have kids and decide whether to stay or not  because I certainly cannot have them witness that again so I guess the big question is if I really believe that will not happen again or if we are better parents on our own.  I definitely haven't made up my mind if I'll say the words I want a divorce or not.  In the past I've said things like, "Either we start couples therapy or I'm done."   I don't have to have a perfect marriage, but I sure as heck would like a good one!!  

I definitely don't want to bother you all with my mess of a life, it's just good for me at times to write it out versus having these thoughts play over and over in my mind.

Weekly Weight Watchers Weigh In: Gained, errrr!

I gained a 1 lb.  It's terrible.  I've had company at my house since last Wednesday and I find it incredibly difficult to stay on plan.  There has been lots of eating out, lots of worrying about what to feed them, and little sleep and add in the most stressful week of my life, I guess it could be worse than just that 1 lb.  I really need to get to the gym even with company here but I'm a people pleaser and it feels rude to me (I know, that's ridiculous, but it's hard to change my thinking!).

Anyone have a favorite healthy family meal they make?  I love to cook, i'm willing to try out some new things!

So confused

I wasn't going to write this post until some final decisions have been made but it hurts to keep it inside.  I might be getting a divorce.  I'm trying to be calm about it.  I'm trying to look at it as I'll be okay.  My husband is mad as hell and blames me and instead of sitting there blaming him for all his faults I just told him that that was fine that he felt that way and it doesn't matter if I agree or not, it's still over.  Plus, if I'm really all those things he says I am and I'm that awful, why would he want to stay.  And that all I ask is that we go about it as calmly as possible so that we don't hurt the kids or confuse them more than necessary.  I keep trying to say that I'll just make it work but he's so mad at me and spiteful that I know it's the end.  I was just thinking this weekend, what makes some couples able to work out their problems and stay married and why do others decide to end it?  I definitely don't want my kids to be from a broken home.  But it's a broken home if everything carries on this way.  The thought of not seeing my kids every single day scares the heck out of me, it truly is the only scary part that I feel right now.  And we are in the middle of an adoption.  I won't do anything with courts until that's final because I think after 2 years of being a mother to my oldest son, it's not okay for the courts to decide anything drastic because he may end up with divorced adopted parents.  I wouldn't risk his adoption for anything.  Yes I feel awful that if we get divorced that he is getting short changed by not having us both their full time but he will still have a great life I promise.

I'm sure most of you can't relate because most of my followers are married. couples dealing with infertility and trying to build their families, not tear it apart.  I keep trying to run through every possible scenario on how to fix our marriage.  But just like our marriage counseling, those ideas are short lived and barely help but certainly don't get us back on track.  I feel awkward even writing this.  I surely didn't set out to blog such a depressing blog when I decided to do this instead of videos.  I'd love to show you all the arts and crafts I do with my kids, the delicious recipes I make, how I decorate my home but the truth is my life is a whirlwind of events.  Nothing came easy to me- pregnancy, weight loss, being a foster mom, dealing with a newborn that had colic and my PPD, finances and my husbands layoffs.  It's not picture perfect, but who's life is?  I just wonder if everyone else has it this tough?