The longest I have gone without a blog

Man, it has been a while with no blog. So sorry about that. It seems like when I have the most to say, I have the littlest time to blog, and the littlest desire also. I think the desire problem comes from the fact that when I have a lot to talk about my blogs are very long and that means having to type a long blog! AHHH!!! I need to quit my lazy-ness.

Well, I guess I will just discuss life! =) Picture Me Chic Photography is moving right along. We now have a website that is every day being updated (www.picturemechic.com) and a blog (picturemechic.blogspot.com), which I have not yet posted a blog on but Amanda has, she picks up my slack, that's for sure. We also have a Facebook page (picturemechic.facebook.com) that you can check out and become a fan of.

Working at the church is also moving right a long. I am LOVING it! It is so awesome to be able to relax on the job and use a little creativity. Wonderful! The better part is the hours, or lack there of! I work for several hours on Wednesday and Corbin is able to hang out with my mom and then on Sunday mornings and Corbin gets to hang out with Daddy, which he LOVES! So it is such a wonderful thing to get the opportunity to work there for a little while! I love it!

And about Corbin- His vocabulary is really taking off. He has probably a 20 word vocabulary which is really cool! He thinks that he can carry on a conversation but obviously he cannot. The 20 words are not put into sentences or anything, they are just words like dog, sock, hi, mom, dad, eye, etc. It is so funny when he pokes me in the eye to say "eye"! I love that little man. Everyone keeps asking me how I am liking staying at home with him, and I will just tell you all now, IT IS WONDERFUL!! He is the sweetest little guy, and I just love getting to see all of his advancements every day. I will never get that back!! So Im loving it!!

So that was an update in a nut-shell! Hey- better than nothing, right?? Love you all!! hopefully I will be on soon!

Where have I been??

Everyone keeps asking me how I am liking not working full time any more, and my answer is that I LOVE IT!! However, I feel busier than I was prior to quitting. There was a lot of down time when I was working so I never felt rushed, and now I stay busy!! I have had several photo sessions in the last two weeks that I will be blogging about here in the next couple of days. They have been so much fun and my self esteem and confidence in photography is growing so so much! I love it!

Last week Corbin and I decided to try out a CARE group full of mommies and little ones! It was absolutely wonderful and exactly what I needed to start my week. I LOVED getting to spend a little time with other Christian mommies and giving Corbin a little time to hang out with some other little kiddos around his age. It was really an amazing day and I have to thank the LORD for placing me their to meet another group of moms. That is so awesome!

Then the rest of our week seemed busy too, Corbin and I always have something to do and when he naps, it seems like I dont stop working. I am doing to have to sit down and make a schedule for myself. Our photography business is going great and I am getting a pretty steady amount of business, but then I end up spending much of the week working on editing and finding needs or the business. I can search online for anything and spend all day finding the perfect options for stuff. This is a big problem right now. I need to focus on being a homemaker and making things happen around our house vs. working full time from home. The point to quitting my job was to spend my time with Corbin and working on the house, and to spend a little bit of time on this new career of mine. So, a schedule is a necessity at this point.

Anyways, we stay busy! We went to the zoo this tuesday, and I worked for a few hours on Wednesday at the Church. Then Thursday we went and took pictures of one our wonderful friend's little boy for 2 month pictures! Then daddy was off yesterday and we went to babies-r-us and then to lunch with my mom and dad.

Yesterday Amanda came in town and we went to get our DBA and to open a business bank account which we actually have a little money in! woo hoo! So, we now officially have a business. We have had a website and all that jazz for a while, but we finally made things official!! So things are steadily moving along!

This blog has been all over the place, but I thought that you could use a little blog for the day! I will also write on tomorrow!

Love you all! I hope you are having a blessed weekend! :)

New Beginnings

Since decding to quit my full time job, I have started working a little bit at the New Hope! I loved working their before, but it was not feasible while also working a full time job. So I'm back at it again under Amanda returns from maternity leave. So, I think I have already shared all of that with you, but I am going to tell you a little about my first day. To start with, Corbin was NOT happy with me leaving him, even to be with his Grandpa. It was so sad. I wanted to cry, but considering it is one day a week for a few hours, I thought that he could handle it, which he did. So, my day, it was wonderful to see everyone at the church again! We have been attending East campus for so long that we have missed out on all of our friends at the main campus:: tear::. So that was wonderful! Things have changed so much though and with the permanent campus happening, I am still flabergasted at how everything just comes together. The Lord sure does have a way of making things happen! Praise HIM! So most of the day was spend re-learning much of what I did prior to leaving, although their were several things that have been put under that umbrella since I left. So, there was still plenty to learn. I love getting to work with Amanda, whom is a close friend of mine. And I also love getting to work with my old boss again! She was wonderful, and still is! I love her to pieces and sincerely missed getting to see her on a regular basis! Love you Jeanne!!!

So I just realized that that was an incredibly long paragraph, so I thought I should start a new one. I came home at 3:00 to a sleeping baby and my dad watching golf. It was wonderful, I was able to pick up the messy house a little and start on dinner. Thanks Mom and Dad for watching Corbin most of the day!!

I checked the mail when I got home and found that our ONE cloth diaper had made it. I have really ordered 7 and 14 inserts, and I now have 1 and 14 inserts. My order has been messed up several times, but they do have decent customer service so it is rather hard to be upset! The diapers that I have ordered have snap in "pads" that go inside the external cloth diaper. They are wonderful! It is like the new generation of cloth diapers! Woo hoo. So I already had the inserts washed so when I got the shell in I could start trying them out! Corbin decided to help in the trying process and had a heavy wet diaper and a poopy one too. The diapers are incredibly!!!! There were no leaks or anything and he had it on for over 3 hours. He luckly had a solid poo, so it was a breeze to change. All that I have to do it put the solids in the toilet (by shaking or using a biday type of sprayer) and then put it in a wet bag until you have enough dirty ones to wash in the washing machine. So simple! I ended up putting him in a disposable diaper for the night time, because the overnight inserts have not come in yet (suprise suprise!), but I do intent to use my ONE diaper and ton of inserts tomorrow. I am excited!

People keep asking me why I am doing the cloth diaper thing, and I think any cloth diapering mommy can tell you the same thing in a 3 part answer:

1) SAFER FOR BABY- There are many studies about the effects of the Chlorine used in cloth diapers and fertility in boys. And many other studies about the chemicals used to absorb in diaposable diapers. You should look into it. We have been using 7th Generation Chlorine and Dye free diapers which is better than the name brand diapers, but it is still not the same. You may ask why we are just now deciding to use cloth, and the answer is simple- DayCares and/or babysitters dont generally do cloth diapers.

2) SAFER for the environment- I read a statistic saying that said 2-3% of landfills are filled with disposable diapers! Not to mention the water and natural resources that it take to make the over 5,000 diapers that you will use in 2 years.

3) CHEAPER- Okay so I spend about $200 to buy my diapers and all the accessories that I need to start cloth diapering. I was spending $12.99 a week for 7th Gen diapers. You do the math. The diapers that I bought are one size, so they grow with the baby from 8 pounds to 35 pounds by adjusting the snaps on them. So, I can use them for my next children also! CRAZY!

4) Okay, I thought I would throw in an extra, THEY LOOK SOOO CUTE! LOL.. I only have 1 white one so far but the other 6 I am getting are blues and browns.

I can't go without showing you Corbin in the diapers! These are just the white ones, but you can see in the front the snaps for readjusting the size:

Blog out!

Life

My life is wonderful right now! Everything is going some amazing and Lord is truly blessing me and my family right now. I am loving everything! Last Thursday was my first day staying at home with Corbin, and he was of course sick! lol. But it must have been just a little bug because Friday he was fine! But, I have so many photography sessions this month and next, it is unbelievable considering I just begun this whole adventure! God will provide for us as we do things that please Him! On top of photography, I do have a couple other ventures that I am doing to help provide for my family. One of which is working at the church for a little while... Amanda, who took my position after I quit, is pregnant so I am working for on Wednesdays (for several hours) and on Sunday mornings for a little while until she leaves and comes back from maternity leave. So I will probably be working there until July, which is a perfect stair step to us being a 1 income family. It came at the perfect time and I felt incredibly blessed to be asked to do this! :) The other thing that I am doing is the marketing for a small tutoring company. Most of this is from home, and it not very many hours or anything, but it is fun and keeps my brain going. It is good for me and I love my boss! :) I have a ton of freedom to just make things happen and it is wonderful! :) Thanks Stephanie!! lol.

Clynt and I are also playing softball, which is fun. I blogged about this a while back, but tonight was practice so it was in my head. We are having fun at it and now I am enjoying it a little more because I am not having to rush to get home, cook, eat, feed Corbin and leave for practice or games. It is soooo nice to not feel rushed any more. I am loving that.

Clynt and I (and Corbin) have spent the last few nights working on getting our yard in shape... It has been nice to be outside and Corbin LOVES being outside, so that is nice. It is awesome that it stays light later bc Clynt is able to come home and we still have time to spend outside and it isnt too hot that late. Im loving it! Yet another blessing!

Okay, and a little on Corbin. His newest word is "baoon" which is balloon. We were at HEB this morning and they hand out "baoons" so Corbin was SOOOO excited! It was soo cute! Corbin is so cute. He is coming up with all kinds of things lately, but I can tell what he was like at his babysitters house. But he was the baby there and I know he got everything he wanted, bc he thinks he can with me too. Poor thing has spent a little time crying today bc he can't get what he wants all the time. I feel my heart break when I hurt his feelings though, but we are working on it! Yet another blessing in my life, having the opportunity to spend time with Corbin and try to raise him in a proper way! Love it!

So I have said many times in this blog how much "I love it!" and it is true. I LOVE my life, and I am so blessed to have all the people around me in my life. It is wonderful.

I love it!

Top Five of the Weekend

I bet you thought that I had forgotten about you?! I still have an hour to finish my weekend favorites blog, so that is what I am here to do now! I hope that I am able to keep it under 6 because it was an excellent Easter Weekend!

1) We went to Pam and Steve's property this Friday. It was a nice relaxing day and we did a lot of nothing! :) and that was exactly what we wanted! YiPee! We walked around and took pictures, and we sat out in the beautiful weather, and then we went to a seafood buffet that was delicious. Overall, it was a wonderful day and Corbin always enjoys the opportunity to be outside a lot and look at the horses. Here are a couple of pictures. I even decided to make a couple of things to look like crosses (I love crosses) and I really like them, I want to print them out and hang them on the wall in my house!

2) Going to the beach house on Saturday- We spent Saturday at Tim and Charlye's beach house in Galveston. It was an enjoyeable day and all of Corbin's cousins that live locally were able to attend, which was nice. They had an Easter Egg hunt with 250 eggs and all the kids had a blast! We at hamburgers and hotdogs, and yet again had a relaxing day! Wonderful!!

-- Well, I had more pictures for you, but all of a sudden Blogger is not letting me add pictures... I guess you should find me on FB and look at all my weekend pictures (Deana Waddell)!

3) Church this morning- I am starting to work a little at the church while one of the ladies goes on maternity leave. It was so nice to be back working at the church. I always enjoyed working there in the past, so this morning was just refreshing! It was Easter Sunday, and we had about 800 people in attendance at our satellite campus and 8500 between the two campuses! Isnt that wonderful!! I think one of the best parts was that our neighbors came back! I was so excited! New Hope Church is a wonderful and blessed place to spend our Sundays!

4) Lunch at my parents house- Corbin LOVES seeing my dad, and man oh man, does my dad love to see Corbin! Corbin is the only grandbaby on my side, so he is so so spoiled! :) My dad LOVES that Corbin loves him! lol. So we went to their house for lunch and for an Easter egg hunt their also. It was another relaxing afternoon. Man- all this relaxing stuff must be why I am up at 11:15pm blogging!

5) and my number 5 favorite thing of the weekend?????---- I DONT HAVE TO GO TO WORK IN THE MORNING! :) I get to be with Corbin the WHOLE day! Whooooo hoooo!!!!!!!!

This was a wonderful weekend! I hope to spend more time blogging this week!

Have a blessed week!