I Quit!

I really did it. I quit my job today. It has been a long time coming, and I am not finished officially, but the notice is in. I am giving my work a 2 months notice since I am currently the ONLY one that does my job, or really knows even how to work everything since they decided to lay off my other 5 co-workers over the past few years. But I feel like giant weight has been lifted off my shoulder already. I knew I wanted to quit, I have just been dreading giving the notice. I HATE confrontations like that. But I am happy to say it went well. My boss was very professional about it and only had nice things to say. Although my two month notice, vs. two weeks made it much easier on him. So now I just have to figure out how I am going to go into the office regularly to train my replacement once they have found someone. My decision to quit has been a long time coming. I knew I wanted to just be a stay at home mom ever since Kaitlyn was born, but we still had a lot of debt and since I had to opportunity to work from home, we decided to take advantage of it. But lately it has been getting harder and harder to manage while still tending to Kaitlyn as she gets older and more demanding. I find that as work gets busier (which it has picked up quite a bit lately) that I have been getting more and more stressed out. And I find myself taking it out on Kaitlyn which is not good. I just feel so guilty when I have all this work to do and I am sitting at my computer and Kaitlyn is hanging on my leg and I am having to try and tell her to go play somewhere else. Not good. I know this decision is the right thing, although finances will definitely be tight now. Luckily we have all of our debt (minus mortgage of course) paid off so we will just have to live very cheaply...even more so for those who already make fun! haha! So my two month notice should be up sometime probably mid-June and then I will be able to enjoy the remainder of my summer as a regular stay at home mom! So bring on the play dates everyone!

February 2011

Life has been crazy as usual, but I keep neglecting this poor blog! Nothing too exciting going on this past month. Valentines Day was pretty low key for us. My only request was for a card (that had to have more written in it than "Love, Justin" and my request was granted, along with the Sound of Music DVD I had been wanting. Justin received some of his favorite candies and a new grill brush and cover since our current ones were worn out. For dinner we went out to Cracker Barrel with a gift card. You may scoff, but that is actually one of my FAVORITE places to eat. Nothing beats a good ol' fashioned southern meal. MMM. Another highlight of the month was that Justin and I both had to give talks at church...acutally not a highlight, but glad it is over! We have been loving the weather lately and have been having fun with Kaitlyn outside. Check out her hair when she plays on her new playset we found on Craigslist! haha!



And my mom got her this awesome shopping cart for Christmas. She pushes it around with her baby in it, but Justin thought it would be funny to put her in it. She loved it!

This past weekend we went to my mom's house to help her build a square foot garden and Kaitlyn had a horrible accident. Justin had been driving the riding Lawn Mower to haul bags of soil, and while we were all busy Kaitlyn touch a hot part on the mower and her hand blistered up pretty bad. She was pitiful. We soaked it in chilled Aloe Vera Juice for about 20 minutes and then wrapped in up in a bandage and she passed out from crying so much. Definitely her worst injury so far :( I was so impressed by how she handled it though. The initial burn was horrible, but ever since she woke up from the following nap, she has not even been bothered by it! We kept it bandaged the first day and she just used her other hand for everything and kept the injured hand up at her side. After that we took off the bandage to let it breath and it hasn't even slowed her down! I am worried about infection though. She won't let us touch it, so every time she is asleep we go and coat it with neosporin and she doesn't mind it being washed in the bath tub. Here are some pictures of her bandaged hand :( But also some happier pictures prior to her injury over at Mom's house:

Catch Up

So I am very behing on my blog, but I had a lot of pictures I wanted to put up here. Nothing much is new with us, except that Justin started school this past week. He is obtaining his MBA through an online program with ECU (where I graduated.) It will take him 3 years since he is only going part time, so hopefully it will not be too time consuming for him. Hopefully it will lead to better career options. Things with my work haven't been too bad lately so I am holding in there for now. We'll see what happens once the housing market starts picking up again in the spring.

Here are some pictures from a couple months ago before it got so cold, but this used to be one of our daily activities was a wagon ride. I am looking forward to being able to get outside more again but it is just too cold right now. I am excited b/c I bought a really cool playset off craigslist for Kaitlyn too once it warms up.

About to depart on our wagon ride...

Love our wagon rides!

Christmas was good for us. This was our first year waking up and having our first family Christmas just the 3 of us. Then we went over to my mom's house where Kaitlyn hit the motherload of toys along with my extended family. We went down to see Justin's family over New Year's along with most of his siblings so Kaitlyn enjoyed that. Christmas was so busy I actually didn't really get many pictures which I regret...but here are a few from Justin's parents.

Modeling the cute hat and scarf that Justin's mom made.

We have had so much snow lately! We had our first white Christmas since I have been alive and then we had another huge snow storm this past week. here are a few pics of Kaitlyn in her snow gear. She is not too fond of it, but I think she mainly just hates her snow suit. The gloves are a little weird for her as well.

Leaving the house and wondering what all that white stuff is...

Sledding down our driveway

Trudging through the snow...

Car Crash

Today I just experienced the worst car crash of my life. With that said it could have definitely been worse and I feel lucky to have walked out of in unscathed along with Kaitlyn. Today started out to be a fairly good day. My dad came over this morning while I was working to play with Kaitlyn. Then my mom called and asked if I wanted to come meet her at Carolina Place mall. "Sure" I said since I needed to do a little shopping anyway for Christmas. I was in the right turning lane to get off I-485 when it happened. A pick-up truck came right into my lane right next to me forcing me to swerve off the road. Then my car completely lost control and I ended up spinning out of control ACROSS 3 LANES of oncoming interstate traffic, ACTUALLY spinning through the oncoming cars, miraculously not hitting them until the very far left lane a guy ended up hitting my front tire, giving us a little more spin to finally go crashing through the cable wires of the median. The cables sliced through the front of my car, but saved us from spinning all the way into the opposite side of oncoming traffic. I was in hysterics. I immediately flew out of the car and ran to get Kaitlyn who was completely unfazed by the whole thing. It really is a miracle that we didn't' get hurt and I know someone was looking out for us. To top it off though, the pick-up truck drove away, leaving me to be responsible for the whole thing. The cop was nice and didn't give me a ticket since I obviously didn't have time to get the guys licence tag no. but told me insurance would definitely file it as a fault. And they did. The car is pretty totaled since the cables sliced through the whole front hood. We had it towed to KIA and they were very nice and gave us a loaner car for free! I am too scared to drive it though. Here are some pics of the damage once it was pulled from the cables. I should have taken one while it was in the ditch but I was a little preoccupied and freaking out :)

Close up of where the cables sliced through the car.

here you can see how high up the cables went acros the hood through the car...and the radiator leaking into the parking lot

27 Things I am Grateful for...

I thought I would do a Gratitude post in honor of Thanksgiving which is around the corner. I couldn't think of a number for how many I should do, so I picked 27...the number of years I have lived on this Earth :)

1. My Faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: I am so grateful to be fully active in our church. I was inactive for several years during late high school and college but always knew that some day I would return. Now that I have, I never want to leave again. There is not a doubt in my mind that this church is true.


2. My Husband: Whether I'm moody or stressed out he knows how to deal with me. He helps out around the house whether it is laundry or couponing with me.


3. My Daughter: Although she was quite horrid in the early months and is still pretty high maintenance, she has turned into a fun-loving, energetic, silly little girl.


4. My Family: They've made me who I am today and will always be there for me when I need them.


5. Friends: Whether I've had them since high school or only a couple years I am grateful to have them in my life.


6. This Country: I am very grateful to live in a country where we have the freedoms that we have...even if some people may be trying to diminish some of those freedoms...


7. The Internet: That may sound shallow, but I cannot imagine life without it now. I use it for everything!


8. Good Food: I LOVE to eat and will try most anything unless it has chocolate in it :)


9. We FINALLY finished reading the Old Testament: We are trying to make it through the entire quad (Old Testament, New Testament, BofM, D&C, Pearl of Great Price) from front to back. We started about 2 1/2 years ago and FINALLY finished the OT. Although we do use the Institute study manual as we go along, so that takes extra time.


10. Yard Sales: Yes I love them and about 90% of Kaitlyn's belongings come from them.


11. Good In-laws: From my sibling-in-laws to my in-laws they are all nothing but nice to me.


12. Our Home: Althought I do wish we didn't rush into buying it, I am happy we are stuck with a house that at least is large enough to grow into.


13. DVR: We hate watching live TV now. We love our favorite shows, but love to be able to watch them on our own time and fast forward through all the commercials.


14. The Temple: We have had the opportunity to start going a lot more often and are very grateful for that.


15. Dave Ramsey: We started his program in February of this year and I am now happy to say that we are completely out of debt as of today (besides our mortgage of course.)


16. Our Jobs: Even though I don't plan on keeping mine for too much longer, I am grateful for how things have worked out to allow me to still be at home with Kaitlyn.


17. Electricity


18. Sleep: Something I don't get enough of anymore.


19. Warm Weather


20. Cars


21. Cell Phones


22. Baby Monitors


23. Vacations: Mostly cruises. We LOVE them. We actually wish we were on that cruise that got stranded so that we would have received a full refund, plus a free cruise voucher!


24. Good Books


25. Coupons: We definitely couldn't live on our grocery budget of $140 without them!


26. Cats


27. 8:00: That is Kaitlyn's bedtime. Yes, yes we love spending time with her, but we don't get upset when 8:00 rolls around :)

Bahamas Cruise 2010

So we are back from our cruise! It was a lot of fun. I was mainly nervous about leaving Kaitlyn but she did great! My mom said she barely fussed at all and stayed on her schedule with no problems! So that was a huge relief. If only she would behave for other sitters as well! We left out of Charleston which was nice rather than driving all the way to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. Justin's brother Jason and his wife Angie went along with us so it was nice to have another couple to hang out with at the dinners and stuff. Here are a few pics of our trip!

Our boat

Our first porthole room. We have always had interiors, but we got a porthole for the same price...not the same as a window, but still nice! And it had a lot of extra space you could put stuff by the window.

One of the formal nights

Nassau, Bahamas

We decided to go to Atlantis while we were in Nassau. It was amazing! So beautiful. I am happy to say that I have been there...even if I didn't get to stay there! We decided to do their water park/aquarium/ beaches excurision. It was fun, but DEFINITELY not worth the money. Everything at Atlantis was SO expensive.

One of the waterslides that goes through a shark tank

Freeport, Bahamas

Since there is not much to do in Freeport we decided to go snorkeling. We found a really affordable place online before we left that picks you up and takes you to their private beach with a little restaurant and everything. They rent out their snorkeling gear or you can go kayaking, etc. We planned on going snorkeling and I started...but there were jellyfish EVERYWHERE. They weren't the really dangerous stinging kind but I didn't care. I wanted out of that water! So I swam all the way back to shore and they let me go out in a one man kayak instead. Justin and Jason and Angie went out anyways and several people including Justin got stung. He claims it only hurt for about 5 minutes though. Whatev. Not me!

KEY WEST:

We didn't do any shore excursions this day so we just walked around. We walked down to the Southernmost Point of the USA...only 90 miles from Cuba!

We decided to go to the Ernest Hemmingway house. It was interesting. I loved it b/c of all of the cats! Apparently Ernest LOVED cats and had tons of them...there was even a cat cemetary on the property. He was known for having 6-toed cats and their decendants still live there!
Me with one of the cats

Halloween Weekend 2010

We had a very busy Halloween weekend, but it was a lot of fun too! Friday night we had our Church Halloween Festival. I made Justin dress up and he hated it :) But I thought it was fun! We dressed up as Hansel and Gretal, but just looked like cheesy German people. Kaitlyn dressed up in a clown outfit I had gotten last year at Walmart for 90% off but it fit perfectly and was SO cute. The church had a "trunk or treat" where the kids went around the parking lot collecting candy. There was also a potluck dinner which is my favorite. I don't know why but I just LOVE potlucks. I love to sample a little bit of this and that from all kinds of people. Justin HATES them though and usually just starves. Here are some pics from the party:

Saturday Morning we headed out to use our Carowinds season passes one last time. We met up with our friends Mark and Ashley and just hung out in the kiddie section this time. Kaitlyn rode her first 'scary' ride...The hot air balloons! Those things were really intense! I was suprised that was a ride she was allowed to go on!

Carowinds had a kiddie Halloween section that was cute and they had lots of games and activities but she was still too young for most of them.

We decided to bring the wagon so that Kaitlyn and Briggs could ride together. I think they had fun. Kaitlyn LOVES wagon rides. She can be having a screaming fit and you put her in the wagon and everything is cured.

Saturday night Justin and I attended the wedding Kaiser and Miquel...one of my good friends from HS. It was at the Ritz Carlton uptown and really nice. My mom came over and watched Kaitlyn and we enjoyed a night out. Miquel looked beautiful as usual!

Sunday (Halloween): We went to church that morning and then came home and relaxed. We weren't planning on going trick or treating since she is so young still and it just looks like we want the candy, but we ended up running out of candy for the neighborhood trick or treaters! They came in swarms...literally like 10+ at a time. Eventually I just stood outside not even bothering to go back inside since I would keep getting up every minute. So after we ran out we decided we would go "collect" more candy! haha. So we dressed Kaitlyn up and went out. She loved getting candy. We let her have one candy bar and she tore threw it with her teeth and just smashed her face into it to get all of the candy out! Gross...since I hate chocolate. I guess she doesn't take after me.