Back from Beach Vacation...

We are back from our beach vacation. Eight days was not nearly long enough on the beach. It seemed like it went by so fast and we all had so much fun. The hubs and I already miss it and every year after our vacation we always say we are moving to the beach. Well, we will see but I don't really think we will be going anywhere.

We also had an extended vacation at the in-laws after our beach vacation. We swam in the pool, ate a lot, roasted marshallows outside, played rook too many times to count, and we taught our 5 year old son how to play real baseball. He loves it! This is the first time he has ever shown interest in playing baseball. He has always been into football and soccer.

Anyway, I thought I would briefly mention a few things about our beach vacation.

1.) I got a great dark tan! It's the first real tan I have had since giving birth to a child. I'm sure it will cause skin cancer.
2.) I got lots of rest & relaxation and I didn't touch a computer for 8 days.
3.) We ran into Santa Claus at a seafood restaurant at the beach. He was even nice enough to pose for a picture and give us his email address.
4.) My good digital camera got hit by a wave at the beach and it's a piece of junk now. I'm shopping for a new one but I don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on a camera considering we are moving in a few weeks and we just got back from a vacation.
5.) We stayed on the beach from morning to night. The weather was perfect and our boys LOVED it.
6.) We ran into some family at the aquarium. I hadn't seen them in a few years and it was wonderful but weird that we would see them on vacation. It just shows how truly small the world really is....I guess...
7.) We were at the beach during the biggest Harley bike week ever. The people didn't bother me but the sounds of motorcycles all night long did. I will never go back during Harley bike week.
8.) My almost 2 year old son's hair turned completely white during vacation. It's adorable! Both boys got great tans too!
9.) While away on vacation someone decided they would hack and completely destroy our established mom message boards. We had almost 1,000 members and around 30,000 posts or more. I guess we will be starting over from scratch as that was one area of my site that I never backed up. I won't do that again. Well, I thought the hubs backed it up for me a few times and he thought I did so you know how that goes. Anyway, all the data is gone and I have to start all over. I'd love for all of you to join us in the opening of our new mom message boards. The new boards wil be ready in a day or two with some new options, fun stuff, and some contests!
10.) One of the great things about our beach vacation was that while I was away at the beach having so much fun, I continued bringing in money without doing anything. Passive income is amazing and I'm just so thankful that I have been able to do this.

Here is a photo of me and my 23 month old son making a water hole in the sand.



Photos from our beach vacation can be seen in THIS flickr set. I will be adding more as soon as I get time.

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Happy Mother's Day To The Moms in My Life

A pic of me and my 22 month old son playing yesterday!

It's a little late but I wanted to say Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful Mommies out there that I have gotten to know on a daily basis via my online business, by reading your blog, or because I really know you in real life.

Even though I have already told my Mom happy Mother's Day and I was able to spend time with her today, I want to wish her Happy Mother's Day again. I don't know if she reads this or not but I just wanted her to know how special she is to me and how much she means to me. I don't think she knows how much that really is.

I also want to wish my sisters and my mother-in-law Happy Mother's Day! They are such AMAZING mothers!

To all my blog buddy mommies out there! Happy Mother's Day! You all are so wonderful and such amazing Mothers!

If you don't know them already, here is MY list of AMAZING mom bloggers. Be sure and stop by their blogs.

I wish I had time to list more moms and write something nice about each of you but I don't. I have just enough time to get my kids to bed, pack,watch the first part of the Grey's Anatomy season 2 finale and leave for vacation to the beach tommorow evening!


Mommy Does It All
Mommy Needs To Vent
Grumpy Mommy
Eabha The Kiwi
Musings of a Self-Proclaimed SuperMom
IzzyMom
MotherHood Uncensored
Confusion Never Stops
Kdubs
Domesticator
Crissy
Mom 101
Rockstar Mommy
Chelle
A Mommy Story
Mental Excrements
Queen Mommy
Nell
The Adventures of awesome (sometimes) Mom
Shannon
EmilyRoseJewel

PS. I didnt get a chance to list all the mom blogs I read.

PSS. This may be my last post until vacation is over next week so don't think I have forgotten about all of you if I dont come by and comment or dont email, etc...I may have access to DIAL Up Internet but I'll most likely ( um, for sure) have better things to do than turn on my laptop.

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Our First Blog Video!

I've seen how many of you are using video and audio on your blog lately and I thought I would try it out!
You get too see a cute video of my youngest son when he was 19.5 months old. This was filmed with my digital camera a few months ago and as an added bonus, LOL, you get to hear my Southern (hillbillyish) accent! I wanted to edit the video to make it shorter but didn't know how. I'll have to get the hubs to redo it for me later. Actually I need to do a whole new video of us since this one is from February but I gotta start somewhere!

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What I learned from playing restaurant with my 5 year old son.

What I learned from playing restaurant with my 5 year old son.

Yesterday was a rainy day so we stayed inside. While inside, my 5 year old son had a list of games and toys for us to play with. Playing restaurant was on our list first so we began.

While I was taking orders and he was eating plastic toy food, I asked him what kind of job he had since he had so much pretend money.

He said, “Watch! I just go over here and run and get the money out of the cash register”!

It was then that I realized that my son wanted to be a cashier or a bank robber. Either way, I think it’s a step up from what he wanted to be a few months ago which was a grass cutter ( the lawn mower man)!

I also noticed from playing with so much toy food that it isn’t the same as the kind we had when I was growing up. The plastic toy food now reads fat-free! Can you believe this? And if it’s not fat-free then it’s hot dogs, pop (soda for the rest of you), or cookies! Am I crazy for noticing this?

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Kids Sexually Assaulting Kids!

I was watching CNN late last night and came across this story about 1st and 2nd grade boys sexually assaulting a girl on the playground.

WTF?

What is going on with these public schools, the teachers, the kids, the parents?

Who is to blame for this? What's next?

This is one of the many reasons why my kids are NOT going to attend public school.

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I Think I have blogger's block!

Oh My! I actually have blogger's block. I'm finding it increasingly harder to find something to write about that someone might actually find interesting. I don't always write straight from the heart about who I am. Maybe that has something to do with it, maybe not... I'm guilty of holding back.

I read so many wonderfully talented mom blogs and I look at mine and wonder why anyone would waste their time here sometimes. I mean I can totally relate to those moms that I read and I think they are the coolest moms ever but I just don't have that writing style inside of me. I'm a technical person...not a writer... I love to share my experiences as a mom with two young boys working from home but my writings don't convey all of what I want them to and as I said before I can only be so real... Yeah I know, this is an issue I have with myself.

I get tons of visitors per month but not so many comments. I've been doing this blog thing for some time now but havent really hit it big like some of you. I guess this blogging thing is just not my area of expertise and it kind of sucks that I suck at it. LOL. I do better in technical areas, creating general content, etc. for websites. But it is much more wonderful to be praised/liked for being me and being me is my blog. Well, the me that I share anyway...

I'm not quitting the blogging or anything but I just thought if I got this out that I'd feel better. I like sharing my experience as a mom and I like having some one else that knows exactly what I am going through and that is ultimately why I blog. That, and to be honest I think it's a good move for my main website, ContestForMoms.com

It's hard and it doesn't do me any good to compare myself to talented writer mommys because I am just not like that and I'll never be like that but with that being said, I do want to be liked. Who doesn't?


Am I making any sense?

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Undecided?

The hubs and I have been dealing with a lot of stress lately. Everything was supposed to fall into place perfectly and the hubs would be graduating grad school in June at the same time that our current home lease was up. It seemed like everything would go as planned and smoothly and we would be settled for a while. However, several things have gone completely wrong ( I think).

Well, first of all the hubs found out that a class wasn't going to be taught during the summer so that meant he had to take the class in the Fall which for us meant that we were going to be in this town atleast 6 more months which also meant we needed to find a new place to live.

Ok, so we finally found a house that we were interested in, was affordable, the kids like it, and it has a nice yard and we were going to sign the papers for it today.

Well, the hubs comes home from work and says, "What would you say if I told you that class was maybe going to make afterall?".

At first I was soo excited at the thought that we could get out of here in one month but after I got to thinking I realized that I really didnt want to leave afterall. Where would we go? Plus I kind of like this small college town.

He didnt really want to leave either. He wants to finish up his classes and GA job this fall in hopes to eventually get a full time teaching job here. He likes this small college town too. It is a miracle that we actually have something in common other than a love for computers and technology. We both like this town! I know, this has NOTHING to do with my story.

So in the end what we thought we didn't want, we actually wanted but we just didn't know it until today. I'm glad we've sort of atleast got some of it figured out so we can finish this week up and get ready for our vacation to the beach next week and be completely worry free and have an amazing vacation together with our 2 precious boys!


Have you ever been in one of these undecided messes? I don't deal so well in these situations...

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Supporting Mothers on Mother's Day

Mother's Day is fast approaching and this is the day to honor Moms everywhere. I have come across a few fun Mother's Day offers, contests, and sweepstakes that I would personally like to recommend to all my blog readers. I hope that each of you will check them out.

Christine Martinello and Rondi Hillstrom Davis, both best-selling authors, have teamed up to bring you the Great Mom Giveaway. During the Great Mom Giveaway celebration you could win one of several prizes and if you decide to purchase either The Momager Guide or Together: Creating Family Traditions you will receive hundreds of dollars worth of bonus gifts for free. I have read both of these books and definitely recommend them for every Mom.

Next up are a few contests and sweepstakes that I would like to mention.

BahamaBreeze.com Mother's Day Cruise Giveaway for 2

$20,000 Lowe's Kitchen Contest for Moms from 1-800-Flowers

Click on the link to view the rest of our recommended Mother's Day contests and sweepstakes

Happy early Mother's Day to all my Mom blog readers!

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A Joke For You From My 5 Year Old Son...

Here is a joke my 5 year old made up while we were in the car yesterday. Atleast I think he made it up and it sort of makes sense if you are a kid I guess...or does it?

5 year old son: "What has 2 sides and is a letter?"

Me: "Hmmmm. I don't know". Seriously. I don't know.

5 year old son: "A cactus!"

Me thinking to myself: Huh? It kind of looks like the letter T but... does it have only 2 sides? ...and a cactus isn't really a letter. Oh my! This child is weird!

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I'm Rambling Today...

Lately all I have been thinking about is how everything I do and say or don't do or don't say will have some type of effect on my children that will last forever. One thing I do know for sure is that my parenting will make them who they are and will leave a lasting impression on them forever. My parenting during these years will determine so much of their permanent personalities.

If I am guilty of anything right now, it's loving my children too much and spending too much time with them. Some people may think this is unhealthy for both me and my children and some may think it's normal just like I do. I want to love and hold my boys as much as I can when they are young because I know as they get older they won't want this from me. So, what's so wrong with giving them all of my love and time now? Isn't that what I am supposed to do? I know when I was a child, time was all I wanted from my parents.

When I first became a mom, I didn't realize how hard being a mom was going to be. When your child is under three, it is so much easier and all you have to do is play with them, feed them, and entertain them. As they get older, you have to do and be so much more. After my oldest turned five this year, I finally realized that it isn't all fun and games anymore. I have to teach him, guide him, and help him make the right decisions. What I do will have an impact on him. It's my responsibility to help him turn into a well rounded, smart, understanding, open-minded, and most of all, loving child, teenager, and adult.

I cherish everyday, live in the here and now, and not take anything for granted. I try and live each day to the fullest because I honestly don't know what tomorow will bring. I havent always been this way but I sure am glad that I am now. Having this frame of mind allows me to be stress-free and happy-go-lucky almost every day of my life. I want my kids to have few rules, less structure, more fun, free expression, and not be stuck with what society calls "normal". I don't want them to be concerned with all the little issues and problems around them. I want them to see the bigger picture and cherish all that life has to offer. I want them to continue to be excited about life and learning for the rest of their lives as they are now.

After reading back through this post, I realize I have been rambling and it may not make a whole lot of sense to you but it makes perfect sense to me.

I guess most of all is that when my boys look back, I hope they will be able to say that I gave them all the time, love, and understanding they needed, I gave them choices, I allowed them to make mistakes, I didn't make them conform, and I showed them the way to having & finding meaning in their lives.

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Vacation Travel Tips To Keep Me from Going Insane?

In two weeks, we are going on vacation. We are going to the beach! I'm sooo excited about getting there but not so excited about the drive. It will take us 8 hours to get where we are going. Of course, we are going by car with a 5 yr old and a 22 month old and two other families driving alongside us.

Our 22 month old has never been in the car for longer than 3 hours and most of the time those 3 hours are pure torture for him and for us. If he doesn't sleep then he screams. I need some serious help in getting him to cooperate for 8 hours. Our trip will probably turn into a 10+ hour trip from all the stops and breaks. Our 5 year old will do just fine. He has been on this trip, at age 3, before his brother was born He will be happily watching his Spongebob Squarepants movies on his portable DVD player.

If you have ever taken kids on a long trip, please tell me how it went.

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