I'll Sleep When I'm dead!

So I haven't been posting very frequently lately.  Why?  Well, it could be that I spend my time after the kids are in bed working on my new business...but that isn't taking all evening.  It could be that we have 6 baby bunnies and a new puppy to take care of...but that's only been the past 5 weeks or so.  It could be that I'm too busy living life with my kids and Chris to document, but I'm just as busy today as I was when I started doing this.  It could be that I'm on Face Book now so I get to see updates of friends lives and/or kids there and don't check here nearly as often - that actually probably has something to do with it:-)   It could be that death has been all around, in my family, in my community, in my daughter's class room...deaths that shouldn't be happening and really make you sit back and think...and pray.  Regardless of the reason, I've been reminded that I'm not keeping up!!  So here I go!

Chris and I are going through the process right now of getting multiple bids for a remodel of his grandparent's home which we've been living in for the past 1.5+ years.  I'm excited about this but the process seems to be going slower than I'd like already - not a good sign!!

May is about to be here and that means BUSY BUSY end of year stuff coming up for the kids and for us!  T-ball is about to start for Addie.  I need to sign Nora and Addie up for swimming this summer.  Wyatt MUST be potty trained at some point in the next few months - he can totally do this, it's just a matter of not giving him a choice the little toot!  May is the deadline for a really big goal I set for myself with my business and I'm going to have to get moving to reach it!  I'm 3/4 of the way there, but that last 1/4 just seems to be a bit difficult!

On the plus side I did get my office painted this weekend with Misty, and it looks pretty amazing if I do say so myself!  I also started doing Black Swan Yoga at home - it's pretty awesome, just go to blackswanyoga.tv and for $8 you have access to your selected instructor's "channel" which means the videos they've done.  15 minutes, 30 minutes 1 hr...there's videos to fill you needs within your time constraint!

I've been re-connecting more deeply with my faith, although it seems there are stumbling blocks along the way, a test perhaps??  (like the priest not showing up for confession the day before Easter when it was scheduled to be...I should go back, I know, but I haven't yet)

I've been prioritizing.  And I guess when it comes down to it, this just wasn't a priority for a while.  But I love looking back and seeing that record of my kids on older posts - so I think I should make it a priority again.  Guess I'll sleep when I'm dead!

 

January - yep, it's March but this is about January!

January is one of my favorite months because 2 of my 3 babies were BORN this month!!  

First was Wyatt on January 20th

Then Ms. Nora at the end of the month

AND we got BUNNIES!!!

January Birthdays are HARD because it's right after Christmas, and I have to admit that there weren't just a ton of gifts, but I think that's ok, as long as there's something for them to open at this age I think that's all that they care about:-)  Sadly our bunnies went down in number due to an unfortunate accident, but we sure love the 2 babies we have left.  We are planning on finding a new home for at least one of them, but they are so much fun right now!  Right now, the little white spotted one (named Princess Sparkle...for now) will run up to the door of the cage when someone comes near:-)  I think she's certainly been trained by treats!!

Christmas Season 2012

What a blast we had in December!  While we did have 2 clouds hanging over our heads, for the most part December was AMAZING!!  The biggest cloud was that my cousin is not well and she was often in pain - I can't describe how heartbreaking and inspiring her journey has been.  We pray to God every night for her to feel better.  The other cloud was the huge pressure to be working ALL THE TIME 7 days a week - this was felt more by Chris than me but I felt it too and helped as much as possible.  My parents were able to help out (my mom several different times) and watch the kids and even took them away for 5 days so we could get work done.  Why were we working so hard - because of the looming fiscal cliff and the unknown:-(

But we had SOOO many blessings come our way in December.  The kids did great in their end of year programs.  We had a narrow miss with the flu (everyone's family but mine got it when we did the Dornak side Christmas).  We had great visits with all of our family.  We had a great month at the office financially, AND my new business had a great month as well...and BONUS, I won another bonus!  While it wasn't the Tory Burch bag I was shooting for, it is a really cute Juicy Coture tote:-)  We were very blessed in 2012 and can't wait to see what 2013 holds!!

 Nora's Jingle Bell Dance - her favorite!

 St. Mary's Christmas Program

 Addie's Christmas Tap dance!

 Dornak Cousins - Skylar is hidden mostlly, but she unknowingly had the flu that weekend, followed by Abigail, Cadence and Grandpa:-(

 Nora's TOTs Half Time performance!  She smiled ear to ear the ENTIRE time!!

 Christmas Morning!

 Doll house, perfect for Barbie and EVERYONE loves it - unfortunately the floor lamp that actually worked no longer works due to one of these little electricians pulling a wire:-(

 He has the stance, the arm, and the weight...just not the mom who wants him to go around hitting people.

 Mimi spent Christmas rehabbing her fractured pelvis - she was in GREAT spirits though!

 Stockings - love Wyatt's morning hair:-)

 Addie's dance after the parade!

 Marketplatz decorations after the parade.

Happy Halloween!

We have had such a fun Halloween season this year!  All of the kids were old enough to be excited about Trick-or-Treating and the girls have been looking forward to this since October 1st!

K Trip to Pumpkin Patch

3K trip to Pumpkin Patch

Bethany Halloween celebration!

Face Painting - Addie loved her rainbow butterfly and Nora was excited but a little nervous about her "little flower on my cheek"

Admiring the results in the mirror they had nearby!

Oma, Opa, daddy and kids before going home from Bethany's fun event!

Notice how the bottom butterfly wings have streaked - there were tears when it was time to go!

3K Class Party

K Class Party

Ready for Trick-or-Treating!!

Telling Mimi "Hi" before starting the candy collection.

Wyatt's friends came over to visit a little before the night ended.  It was a GREAT HALLOWEEN!  Now on to the other holidays that I love so much more!

Results!

       

The decision to start a new business can feel like this...

But having actually taken the plunge I now feel like I'm running free!  A lot closer to this...

I've dedicated the past 6 years to growing babies and raising kids, and they are my greatest achievement and works-in-progress all wrapped up into one!!  What I haven't been doing a very good job of in that time period is taking care of myself.  Not that I've been completely prohibited from doing fun things for myself and splurging every now and then, but certainly my primary focus hasn't been on myself.  I personally don't think any mom's focus should be entirely on herself (which sadly I see every now and then) but at the same time I think it's NOT a good thing to have virtually no focus on myself (which I see much more often with moms).

Sacrifices in our social calendars are to be expected, and happily are filled with much more fulfilling time with family:-)  But looking back at my pregnancy pictures from 6 years ago and looking in the mirror today, I think, good Lord - have I really changed THAT MUCH!!  My professional career also took a path not originally planned due to kids - which has turned out to be such a blessing!  Instead of working like crazy leading up to trial and traveling all over our great state, I have regular office hours and limited travel and a much less hostile line of work:-)  But I also gave up the potential to "make it big" with that once-in-a-lifetime case.  The amazing feeling of "This could be the one!" doesn't really occur with estate planning, probates and business law.  

I've been blessed though, I've found a way to combine taking time to care for myself with a business that has the financial potential which resoundingly gives me the feeling of "This is the one!"  It's now my "job" to take care of my skin!  My final goal hasn't been reached, but I'm pretty pumped that I have results that I can see after only 3 weeks on Rodan+Fields Reverse and after 1 week of using the Anti-Age Eye Cream! 

Gaining a MONTH of Quality Time with my Kids:-)

My goal is to have an EXTRA MONTH of quality time with my kids.  Am I going by a new calendar?  Am I taking an extended vacation?  Nope, I'm going to use my income from my new business to simply leave my office 2 hours earlier each day and pick up my kids.  Can I do this tomorrow?  Nope.  Will I do this by the end of this school year?  YES!!  

Everyone always says "Kids grow up so fast.  Enjoy them while they are young because it doesn't last."  Over the past 5 years that has become abundantly clear to me.  There's no way to stop time, so what's the answer?  How can we spend more quality time with our kids??  Being a stay-at-home mother is the answer for some people.  Some can't do this because it isn't a viable financial option.  I personally think I'm a better mom to my kids by having my career.  But as my youngest gets closer and closer to two, I realize that I would like to spend more time with them, especially while they still want to spend time with me!  I don't want to put more of the financial earning responsibility on my husband though, I want him to continue to be able to spend time with the kids too.

Moving to a small town was part of the answer to this dilemma for us.  How big of a difference did that make?  Well, the hour that we used to spend commuting to and from work gives us approximately 11 ADDITIONAL DAYS of time with our kids.  This isn't time spent sleeping, it's real time with our kids in the morning and evening that we were missing out on.  (Here's my rough calculation, 5 day work week so 5/7ths of the 365 days in the year - no I didn't calculate holidays - is  260.7 additional hours a year we get just by eliminating the commute.  260.7/24(hrs in a day) = 10.86.  THIS JUST HIT ME TODAY!!  I spent 11 DAYS more with my kids this past year than I did the year before!!

So after this revelation, I thought you know, I could multiply this.  If I just leave at 4:15 instead of 5:15 that total will be 22 days!!  But who wants to pay for extended day care for just 1 hour a day??  Not me, especially if by leaving the office at 3:15 to pick up my kids after school means that I will literally have an extra MONTH of quality time that I will be spending with them after school - AWESOME!!!  And thank God I figured this out before they hit junior high when after school athletics will cut into our together time!

It's like I've just added another month to the calendar, and the month is dedicated TOTALLY to my kids!  What an amazing feeling:-)  I mean, if you could spend more time with these kids, wouldn't you?!

Thanks Rodan+Fields (shameless plug - I know)

Check out the amazing products:  gayles.myrandf.com

Call me if you want more mommy time too!  830-992-1908

Show me the money September!!

Introducing a new beauty product...

Just kidding, no I'm not selling mud masks:-) The kids did have a blast playing after the rain though. It's been SOOOO long since it has rained that on Friday when Wyatt walked out to get in the car and it was drizzling, he pointed out and said "Waz dat?" I laughed - a necessary part of every inner beauty regiment.

     So for the past year, I've actually started to pay attention to my skin. I thought, I'm young, I have two weddings this year (one in February and one in August)so I'll just "fix" my face by getting facials once every 4-6 weeks. It will be phenomenal!! It was a good thought, I stuck to it, and I have done myself a lot of good this past year. The fabulous lady I found in Fredericksburg that has been doing my facials also encouraged me to bring in all my "beauty supplies" (read: free samples from Clinique bonuses and whatever face wash I happened to have at the time)and she wrote out a 4 step regiment for night time, and a two step one for the morning, using only the products I had on hand! I loved that I didn't feel like she was trying to sell me something. One thing she frequently mentioned was that I have sun damage on my face that CAN be REVERSED. I kind of brushed those comments to the side, that is until the lady at the Woodhouse Day Spa (where we went for Courtney's bachelorette party) told me the EXACT same thing about sun damage:( This also coincided with my once rather voluminous supply of Clinique freebies being diminished to almost nothing. I started to look around, I even started trying a few products I actually had to purchase. Long story short, I landed on RODAN + FIELDS!!

I've just started a business with the creators of Proactiv. They are now doing for aging what they did for acne. Their new company is called Rodan + Fields, and was first launched into high end retail stores, where it became a top selling clinical skincare brand in stores like Nordstroms. In an effort to reach more people, they (Dr. Rodan and Dr. Fields - yes, they are real women)decided to successfully leave retail and go into direct sales. I have joined them.

We are looking for dynamic, driven people who want capitalize on joining us in the beginning! My goal when I joined was to make enough money to pay for my skin care products. Now I see I can do so much more!!

 Who do you know? I'm looking for referrals! 

 If you know anyone who is looking for a change- and wants chat and hear about the opportunity in a positive, professional way.....OR if there is anyone you know with a skincare challenge- the Drs can offer them the best skin of their life, and they back it with a 60 day empty bottle guarantee!

Thanks so much for your support! I build my business on referrals, and would appreciate yours! I'm excited to chat and catch up! Here's a quick 5 minute video you can watch before we chat: http://youtu.be/s27SL3xug6w

Gayle's Cell: (830)992-1908