Baby bumps (NOT MINE)

My dear friend Amy had her first book, Baby Bumps, released on Monday, July 9th on Nook.  On August 9th, her book will be available on all other e-reader formats.  And on August 15th, her book is coming out in paperback.  I could not be more excited for Amy.  If you have clicked over to check out her blog yet, go!  Seriously...she's hysterical.

You should also check out my other amazing author friends and pick up there books as well.

Maureen Lipinski is another awesome friend who has helped me through my transition from working mom to stay at home mom.  She's the kind of friend who can cheer me up when I feel like I'm failing.  And our husbands and children get along, which we are both grateful for.  Maureen has written two adult books, A Bump in the Road and Not Ready for Mom Jeans and an YA book, Shadow's Edge.  Maureen has her next YA book, Cleopatra Ascending (the second book in the Shadow's Edge series) coming out in January 2013.

Stephanie Elliott has been a great friend through both my pregnancies and after.  Even though she moved out to Arizona and I miss her, she's still there to chime in with words of wisdom or something to make me laugh. Her e-novella, The Cell Phone Lot, is available on Amazon.  Stephanie also blogs over here and here.

What are you still doing here?  Go check out there books and blogs!

Why don't friends with kids have time? TELL ME ABOUT IT

I came across this article on Facebook today and did a quick Google search to find the original article.  I ended up also stumbling on 1 Bad Mom's blog and her comments.  This pretty much sums it all up.  Follow the link to see what I mean.

Why don't friends with kids have time? TELL ME ABOUT IT

It has been one year...

It has been a year since the last time I posted.  It has been less time since I have written but for some reason I never posted those.  And of course, so much has changed in the last year.

• Baby boy, Monkey, as we lovingly refer to him, was born on May 16th.  One day before my 29th birthday.  It was an ordeal - but that's for another post.
• I have postpartum depression that I have been working on since Monkey was 8 weeks old.  It has been a long and tedious road, but I am getting better.
• Sweet Pea has learned to walk, run, climb stairs, etc.  She talks non-stop, narrating her life to us.  RoadTripDaddy and I love it, well...most of the time.
• Monkey is in constant motion.  He moves lightening fast even though he is not crawling on all fours yet. He has perfected the army crawl and can cross a room in the time it takes me to write this sentence.  Monkey is also pulling himself up on things.  As of this morning, he is now able to pull himself all the way up to his feet.  I'm not ready for this.
• We moved Sweet Pea to a toddler bed - her crib converted.  The first night of sleep went great.  Every night since that (over 2 weeks) has been not good.  Most nights we are awoken at 12:45am or 2:30am.  It's awesome...
• As of tonight, Sweet Pea has decided that when we leave her room after the bedtime routine, if she is awake, she will get out of bed and follow us - wailing - into the hallway or our bedroom.  Another awesome finding.
• I have made resolutions (not for New Years) that I have vowed to keep - and my number one priority is making 2011 "the year of our family."

In the last year, I have learned so much from my friends, family, Sweet Pea and Monkey.  I'm trying to keep these lessons of patience, understanding, forgiveness, wonder, excitement, and joy in the forefront of my mind.  I'm trying to take things less personally.  I'm trying to ease up on myself.  As I found this Christmas, there is only so much I can control.  I can't go back...I can't change what has happened.  I can only learn from it and move forward.  

"Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller

Delurking Day!

Today is Delurking Day, a day where you I encourage you to “delurk” or say “hi,” especially if you don’t normally comment. Yes, it’s a blatant ploy to get comments. I’m okay with that. I know it’s awkward to comment when you really have nothing to say, so I’m asking you to delurk (or just comment as you regularly do!) and tell me, who were your first blog reads?

Delurking Day, hosted by Greeblemonkey and Rude Cactus

2009 comes to a close

This is a long post. If you are too lazy to read the whole post (or just want the good stuff - head down to the last 2 paragraphs!)

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions. It's not that I don't believe in them or I think I will set myself up for failure. I just think that waiting for a particular day to occur to make a change in your life (hopefully positive) is a silly idea. If I decide in June that I want to volunteer more, why wait until January 1st to contact the charities I hold dear to my heart? Why not call that day and ask how I can help out?

A few months after Sweet Pea was born, I saw that a blogger (and no, I don't have any idea who it was) was taking a picture of their baby every day for the first year of their life. What a great idea I thought. Why didn't I think of that? It wasn't like I didn't have 2000 pictures of her by her second month (because I did). But there was something about starting or ending or at least acknowledging every day with a picture of Sweet Pea's life.

I told myself it was too late for Sweet Pea. How could I start that now? What with her being 4 months old and all? So I didn't. And I regret it. Because how cool would it be to see how much she has changed. I know she has. I can see it in the pictures framed at my desk and the rotating background on my computer.

It's been a crazy year for our family. I know 2009 has been awful for some people (for a lot of people). But all in all, 2009 has been good to the RoadTripFamily. We went from a married couple (family of 2) to a family of three with Sweet Pea brightening our days. While I received news that I had tumors in my thyroid that needed to be removed, I learned they weren't cancer. And I was grateful. And a week before my husband's birthday, we found out that I'm expecting again. It was a rough first month and there were concerns of miscarriage. But I can tell you that I'm 19 weeks along and looking forward to our ultrasound next week. We've had our ups and downs, but there's been a lot of love. I look forward to 2010 with some nerves, but mostly I'm excited to see what will happen next.

On that note, I have decided on two resolutions for 2010. After seeing OHMommy wrap up her year in pictures on Twitter, I have decided to challenge myself to a year of pictures. I plan to share some on this blog but mostly, it's for the RoadTripFamily. We have a lot to see in the next year. From Sweet Pea's 1st birthday to baby 2 to our 3rd wedding anniversary and 4 weddings (so far). Secondly, my goal when starting this blog was to post as often as I could. And I admit, I could have posted more often. So in 2010, I am resolving to post at least once a week (please note that could mean a Monday of week 1 and Saturday of week 2 - because I'm ambitious but let's be serious). While these may seem like minor resolutions to you (and anyone else I tell), it's about a commitment to RoadTripFamily and our life together. They are the best part of my day.

Happy New Year everyone!

Blogging Template

So I started this blog a little while ago and selected the template that I liked the most out of my options.  After viewing hundreds of blogs in the past few weeks, I have come to hate my current template.  But today I found the solution to my problem, Dee of Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House is giving away a free blog template by Hilary of SimplyYours.  You can register to win your own template as well by visiting Dee's blog here.  The contest runs until May 25th and you can bet that if I don't win, I will be purchasing a template shortly after and updating my site.

Hope everyone is having a great week!  It's almost Friday!!!