Stay at home mom blues

Disclaimer: This post is just me venting and allowing myself to feel just a little bit sad.  Feel free to skip it :)

I feel like I'm brand new at this whole staying at home thing.  Even though I have two children, and even though Steven will be 3 this September, and even though I've actually been staying at home for a while, it still feels new to me.  After Steven was born I did random spurts of working for a few months at a time.  Also, with Steven, even when I was at home all the time, he was so young that he just adjusted to my schedule, I could take him wherever and still do whatever I wanted to with him.  Then, when I had Sofia, I ended up going back to work full time when she was two months old.  It wasn't until this past January that I got a job that allowed me to work at night and stay home with my kids a lot more.  The first little bit I was training, and so even then my schedule was kind of crazy and I didn't feel like I was home all that much more than when I was working full-time.  In April I finished my training and started working my regular schedule.  Now I only work 2 nights a week and so at the most, my kids are at the babysitter's for 7 hours the day after I work.  So even though I've been working on and off for a while, and I started this new job in January, I am just now starting to feel like a real stay at home mom.
I do not mean to sound like I'm complaining.  I am really grateful that I get to be home with my kids the majority of the time and I am also very grateful that I have such an amazing husband who supports me & works very hard to make it so I won't have to work at all (unless I want to) very soon.  I just feel a little lost sometimes.  I'm sure a lot of new stay at home moms feel this way.  There's no one telling you what you should be doing, no schedule you're supposed to follow, no deadlines to meet, like in school or at work.  What you do is up to you.  And although there are set things you need to do, like the laundry, or grocery shopping, or cleaning the bathroom, when you do it is really up to you.  And now that my kids are getting older, I need to not only entertain them but also I need to start teaching them things.  I feel a bit overwhelmed sometimes. 
I don't really like the feeling of complete freedom & the complete responsibility of what & when things get done, I've come to realize.  I will be the first to admit that I am not a very good housewife.  My mom never really gave us set chores, and although we helped out around the house, she did the vast majority of the cleaning and cooking.  I'm not out to blame her, but I think that more responsibility would have been a good thing for me.  So now here I am, with my two wonderful kids, and I don't really know what to do with myself.  I feel like I should be keeping my house spotless and teaching my kids and making sure they turn into geniuses and not letting them watch too much TV (and then feeling majorly guilty because I end up letting them watch way too much TV).  I feel like if I'm not doing all these things, I'm not living up to the standards of a stay at home mom.  Logically, I know that's not true, but sometimes I just get down on myself. 
I also get lonely at times when it's just me and the kids all day.  During the summer I don't see Josh nearly enough (seriously, if I'm not working, Josh will get up at 5 AM and not get home until 9:30 or later at night) so that doesn't really help the loneliness thing. I would say that I have a fair amount of friends, but most of them work or live in Utah County.  I do have friends that stay home with their kids near me, but for whatever reason I have been really bad at spending time with them (sorry guys!).
I know my happiness or frustration or sadness or loneliness or boredom majorly depends on me (if not entirely).  I do realize this.  I just sometimes feel so overwhelmed at the vast amount of things I should  be doing and also that all of it relies on me and what I'm doing about it.  I'm the one who decides what we do with our day.  I'm the one who decides whether or not the house gets clean.  I'm the one who decides what and when to teach my kids.  If I want to spend time with friends or make new ones, I need to get out there and do it.  I'm the one who decides what kind of structure goes into my day.  "Experts" say that it's really important for kids to have structure in their day, and if they do, they usually have a better time at behaving in a positive way.  I'm now starting to realize that not only do children need structure, but parents (at least ME) need that structure as well!  My major problem is that there is so much to do (cleaning, cooking, teaching, entertaining, etc.) in my day and it's all up to ME when and how and what gets done that it overwhelms me a lot of the time and then not much gets done.  Plus I'm just lazy some of the time.  I'd really rather watch TV or read a good book than scrub the toilet.  So sue me ;)  And then there's the whole topic of teaching your children.  I'm amazed at those women who have little craft projects or learning time or whatever you want to call it every day (let alone those women who home school their children!).  I don't even know where to start but I desperately want to make sure my kids (especially Steven at this point) get a good start to their education and that they don't turn into couch potatoes.  And again, whichever thing happens is up to ME.  It's hard having all that responsibility! 
I know I just need to DO IT...to set up some sort of a schedule, to look online for good learning activities and projects.  I need to just call up my friends and set aside time to see them or have play dates or meet at the park or what have you.  I know I'll be a lot more happy and content if I just do that.  I have to for my sake and my kids' sake.  But right now I am letting myself vent and be a little sad.
If anyone has any ideas or resources about teaching their kids or how they handle the huge responsibility that is being a stay at home mom, I'd love to hear it!
Vent over.

Sofia turns ONE!

This is me, again, being horrible at blogging!  Yes, Sofia's birthday was in April & now she is almost 14 months old.  Better late than never, I suppose, & Sofia certainly doesn't know the difference...

I was actually at BYU's Women's Conference on her actual birthday but the babysitter had a little party for her, which I'm grateful for.  The next day we went down to Moab to go camping with some friends.  Because of all that, we didn't actually celebrate her birthday until a week later.  We had Josh's family over for dinner, cake & ice cream. Even though our condo is tiny it's still always fun to have people over :)

Sofia enjoying her dinner with her super cute "1" crown (I just had to buy it when I saw it)

Josh helping Sofia open her presents

Sofia anxious for her cupcake :)

She's excited....

I love that she just dives right in sometimes...

Oh, she really enjoyed her ice cream cone!  After that initial bite, she did NOT hesitate!  She chowed down like there was no tomorrow.  She even started to eat the cone!

I hate that this one is so blurry but I just couldn't resist putting it in.  I love her face!  It just shows how excited she is

I love this picture :)

 Sofia getting all cleaned up

The Reader's Digest Version of our Lives as of Late

As you can see, it's been quite a while since I've blogged regularly.  Instead of trying to do a bunch of smaller posts, I thought I would just post a bunch of pictures of what's been going on lately & that will have to suffice.

Steven is turning into such a little boy.  Anything he finds can be turned into a gun.  Case in point: he's got a straw in his hand & he was laying on the ground making shooting noises.

This was before I cut Steven's hair last.  This was when I had picked the kids up from the babysitter's & she had parted his hair like this because it as getting in his eyes.  I just thought it looked funny :)

Steven really loves to help me cook.  This night I was making bread & Josh pointed out the nice little hand print after I was done.

Sofia is quite an enthusiastic eater.  She really prefers to feed herself & tends to get quite dirty.  This night I didn't want to draw up a whole bath so I just put her in the sink to clean her off.

This is the kind of stuff I find after Sofia has been too quiet for a while.  This is also the reason why we now put the toilet paper roll up high.

We got a very nice tax return this year.  We used a large chunk of it to pay some bills but we decided to use a portion of it to jump start our food storage.  This is a picture of most of the stuff we got with that money. The blue barrels are 55 gallon water drums.

Around the same time that we were buying our food storage, Josh worked at the local church pasta factory.  In return he was able to buy a bunch of pasta to put in our food storage. We had so much so we had to put some above our cupboards.

One of our cupboards full of pasta.

The final set-up of our food storage

A little while ago I decided to have a fun little activity with the kids.  This is the set-up of our finger painting activity.  I taped some trash bags on & under the table for easy clean-up.

The tools we were going to use: chocolate pudding instead of finger paint, pretzels, & plastic utensils.

Steven wearing his little apron.

Sofia's ready to play!

Steven was way more interested in eating the pretzels than finger painting...

"Look, Mom! I get to play with pudding without getting in trouble!"

"Hehehe! I'm going to get messssyyy!"

Steven getting into the fun :)

This is Sofia's really excited face

Sofia & I with our AWESOME chocolate mustaches!

This is Steven actually saying, "SMILE!" in this picture :)

A real smile :)

The aftermath of the activity

I love the faces she makes :)

Two of my sisters & I (Lisa - middle, Ginelle - right) at BYU's Women's Conference at the end of April.

At the end of April we went to Moab with a group of friends. This is Josh's truck piled up with stuff on the way there.  Don't worry, not all of this stuff is ours ;)

Steven helping Josh set up the tent. Somehow he knew, even before Josh got out the poles, that some sort of straight thing went in the loops.

Steven insisted on walking around in his bare feet

Sofia the cheeseball

Josh & I took the kids on a walk & I took this picture with my phone. There was a really bright glare on my phone so I couldn't even really see what the picture looked like until later.  I think it's so gorgeous!

On said walk.  Many people had carved their names in this rock so Josh decided to do the same.  Steven was trying to do so as well, but a stick doesn't work very well...

What Josh carved: "J+C".  The picture quality sucks because I used the front camera on my phone to take it.  Apparently that also flips the image...lame.

  One afternoon we hiked up to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.  This is Steven following some of the other people in our group.

Josh, Sofia, & Steven on the hike.  Both of the kids did really well!  Steven seriously walked at least half of the 3 mile hike by himself!

Steven, Josh, & Sofia checking out Delicate Arch

We forgot to get a picture in front of the arch so we just found this cool tree to get a picture in front of.

Our friend, Scott, carrying a tired Steven.  All of our friends were super nice & helped carry Steven on the way down

Meghann & Steven.  I think he had a crush on her ;)

Sofia fell asleep on the way down

One of my best & oldest friends turned 25 in May so this is a group of us out to dinner to celebrate.  L-R: Katie (I think...), Arika (a.k.a birthday girl!), Cora, Erin, & I.  We went to this place called La Jolla Groves in Provo; it was very yummy & the atmosphere was awesome!

Arika's dessert.  Look how fancy that is!jm  ,

My dessert.  Mmmmm...chocolate... :)

Josh's fancy new work truck.  It's HUGE!