Recentness

Well, the day has finally come and it's time for me to put my big girl pants on and take a step away from Facebook.  As apprehensive as I feel, God is reassuring me that this is the right thing to do for now.  My hopes are that it will free up some time for soul searching, writing, playing guitar and spending time with the ones I love. 

Callie is now 8 months old.  It's so incredibly difficult to grasp how quickly she is growing.  At 7 months she started crawling, and now is already trying to stand up and use her feet to move!  I keep telling her to slow it down because Mommy is NOT ready to have a toddler yet.  Here are a few pictures from our little photo session.  She truly is the light of our lives!  

Yesterday was my 27th birthday.  To be quite honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it in the weeks and days leading up to it.  The past two months have been pretty difficult for me emotionally.  I've become very withdrawn and haven't felt like myself at all.  On Thursday I was able to take a half day of work to go into the doctor where I was diagnosed with postpartum depression.  I've struggled with depression in the past but this is so different from what I've experienced before.  The weight of motherhood, being a wife, daughter, friend, employee.... It's all just become so heavy on my shoulders which makes the symptoms that much worse.  I'm thankful for doctors, for my friends, for my family.  I'm thankful that I am able to talk about it.  My family history is less than stellar in this department and the ability to express my feelings is something that is only possible because of my Savior.  I know that He is the ultimate healer and if it is in His will, this will only be temporary. 

I walked into my house yesterday after work with my hands full of groceries thinking about the to-do list that was in front of me before company arrived.  My eyes went directly to the fireplace where I saw two gifts sitting, I smiled to myself thinking, not only did my incredible husband take the time this morning to clean the house, but he also set out gifts for me! As I walked toward the kitchen my attention was drawn to the beautiful decorations all over the house.  A laugh actually escaped from my mouth as feelings of relief and love rushed through my body.  Then, from out of nowhere I see something big moving behind me!  I turn my head and see Josh Rollins, one of my dear friend's husbands, standing there with a camera in his hand.  Before I could say anything, my friends popped out of the kitchen yelling, "SURPRISE!" They had all come in early to decorate the house for my birthday and spend a little extra time with me and Callie.  I was completely taken off guard and so overwhelmed with happiness. 

The night progressed and more friends and family arrived for food and incredible conversation.  At one point during the evening I stepped back and was completely in awe of how blessed I am.  Seeing so many people you love and admire in one room is an overwhelming feeling that is just not describable. We all hung out well into the night, and I woke this morning with a smile on my face and peace in my heart.  Thank you to each and every one of you who wished me a happy birthday, your love and friendships mean the world to me and I am so very thankful! 

Here's to a wonderful new chapter in my life... I look forward to seeing what is in store. 

Instagram Answers

After my post about leaving Facebook I received a lot of questions from friends and family about Instagram.  Hopefully this post will answer those!

Instagram is a photography app for your phone.  If you have a smart phone you can find this free app by searching in the app store for instagram.  Here are the steps for smart phone users:

1. Open the app store on your smart phone.
2. In the search box, type in instagram.
3. Download the app to your phone.
4. Once the download has completed, open the app by tapping it once.
5. It is going to ask you to log in or create an account.  For most of you you'll be creating an account.  Don't fret- it is SUPER easy and doesn't cost you a thing.  You'll just need to create a username and a password and then, walla! 
6. Once you're logged in you'll see something that looks a little like this:  (yours won't have my name or pictures... this is my profile view).

At the bottom of the screen you'll see 5 buttons.  The first is your home tab where you'll see an active picture feed from your photos and photos of the users that you follow.  Right now you won't have anything because you're not following anyone!  :)  That brings me to the next step...
7.  Click on the second tab at the bottom (kinda looks like a star).  Once you're here you can enter a username in the search box at the top of the page. 
8.  Search for NickiLynne15 (this is my username).  It will pull up my profile. 
9. Click on "Follow" and it will send me a request to let you follow me.  Once you've been approved you'll be able to view my photos in your feed (under the home button).  Now you're done!

If you enjoy taking photos this is a GREAT app, just click on the button in the middle (camera).  There are two tabs that I didn't mention.  The speech bubble with the heart is where you can see comments or likes for photos you've taken.  This is also where you would go to approve for people to follow your photo stream (make sure you put your profile as private if you don't want the whole world to see your pictures).  The last tab is your profile.  Pretty simple! 

I know this seems like a lot of work, but it won't take you more than five minutes to do, promise!  Once you've created a username you can also access instagram from your computer.  I just discovered this yesterday and it's AWESOME.  It's called webstagram... (click the link to go there)  I'm not sure if you'll be able to view my feed without logging in, but if it will let you this link will take you directly to my picture feed by clicking here.

Hope this helps answer those questions... If it doesn't work or you need further explanation just let me know, send me a message!  Good luck!

Little Green Pouch - AMAZING

As I wandered the aisles of Buy Buy Baby last week shopping for a birthday gift, I ran into the squeezable baby food pouches and thought about how wonderful and convenient they would be for feeding on the go.  When I saw the price for one pouch, however, I quickly replaced it and went on my merry little way.   There was NO way I was going to buy a pouch for almost $2.00 just to throw it away when it was gone. 

The question I kept asking myself was, why has no one made a reusable pouch?  Well.... Come to find out, someone has!  My Google search led me to this incredible website for the Little Green Pouch.  You can purchase 4 reusable food pouches for $14.99!  I quickly placed my order and not only were they quick to process it, they even sent me an email thanking me for my order and the box was on my doorstep before I knew it.  I love that these are reusable, but even more than that, I love that buying them is helping to support two wonderful mommas who came up with a great idea and followed through with creating it. 

This morning Callie had some homemade peaches straight from the pouch and did great!  I would highly recommend these to any of my mommy friends out there for your baby/toddler/kids! 

Adventures in Motherhood- Making Baby Food

There are a lot of decisions to make being a mommy.  One of those was very easy for me, to make or to buy baby food.  Please don't get me wrong, I am not anti store bought anything... I am, simply put, cheap frugal.  Finances can get tight with a little one and in order to save where we can this was an easy choice! 

For example, an 8 pack of organic carrots costs $12.79.  I can buy a bag of organic whole carrots for about a dollar and it makes 12+ servings!  How can you say no to that?!  Add to that it's easy peasy to make!  As a shower gift we received the baby bullet system and baby bullet steamer.  Veggies get washed, steamed and then blended with breast milk.  Fruits get blended with breast milk and purred to a nice smooth pulp!  So far Callie has had a ton of fruits and veggies and loves most of them. 

I've been keeping a journal of all of her first foods so that someday she can look back and see what she liked/didn't like.  It's also for me though, as my memory is less than stellar. :)  Here are a few pictures from our adventures in eating... And for those of you who have considered making baby food, I would totally encourage you to try!  It truly is not hard, only slightly time consuming and very worth it!  I love knowing exactly what Callie is eating and being able to mix it with breast milk is just an added bonus.  Anyone else out there making their baby food?  I'd love to hear your stories!

Nov.15, 2012 - Carrots (liked)
Nov. 20, 2012 - Sweet potatoes (liked)
Nov. 25, 2012 - Avocado (LOVED)
Nov. 29, 2012 - Tasted a pickle (LOVED)
Dec. 1, 2012 - Zucchini (liked)
Dec. 6, 2012 - Green Beans (hated)
Dec. 9, 2012 - Bananas (loved)
Dec. 11, 2012 - Asparagus (hated)
Dec. 14, 2012 - Mango (loved)
Dec. 19, 2012 - Acorn Squash (loved)
Dec. 27, 2012 - Apples (loved)
Dec. 30, 2012 - Tasted a tortilla from Uncle Julios (loved!)
Jan 2, 2013 - Peaches (loved)

New Year, New Me

As I take the time to reflect on this past year there are many things that I am thankful for.  Off the top of my head I can think of a couple;  successfully completing my first year of teaching without losing my mind,  Josh and I celebrated three years of marriage and even welcomed our first little blessing into this world as we started a family! 

 October 2012- Callie 5 Months old

Callie was without a doubt the highlight of 2012 for both of us.  She is now 7 (almost 8) months old and blossoming right before our eyes.  Our little bundle of energy is crawling, sitting up and even saying "Dada!"  She is so very determined and sweet.  No matter what she is doing, if she catches your smile or gaze she will stop, lock eyes with you, cock her head to the side and give you the cutest grin you've ever seen.  This girl loves the camera and is a natural in front of it.  She has brought Josh and I closer together and given my heart a reason to rejoice and celebrate after a very difficult year and a half without my daddy.  I can just imagine the look on his face seeing her for the very first time.  He would have a slight smile with those big brown eyes filling up with tears, arms outstretched reaching for his little girl that he'd waited so long to see.  I know that if he were here, no one one have a chance to hold or play with Callie... He would hog her completely and I would let him. :0)

Another part of looking back over the past year is discovering some things about myself and my life that I'd like to change.  Somewhere between the physical and mental demands of being a teacher, the 24/7 job of being a devoted mother and wife and attempting to squeeze in time for family and friends I lost a little bit of me.  I have not made the time to do things that I love, I have not touched my guitar in months or picked up a paint brush to create an image from my mind, I haven't let my fingers dance across the keyboard on my computer to pour out my heart and soul on this blog in months and, in general, I have lost a lot of my joy.  So how do I fix this? 

I am pretty positive that part of what I've been going through is postpartum, but that is a whole other blog post...  Somehow I have to figure out what changes need to be made in order for me to live a life of joy and fulfillment.  Along the journey through my thoughts I discovered that a lot of my time is devoted to habitually checking Facebook.  Sometimes I'm not even aware that I am flipping through my news feed on my phone until ten minutes have passed.  With the many positives that Facebook has; keeping in touch with loved ones, seeing what friends are up to,  sharing photos and videos with those you love... It also has its negatives.  I have lost friends through Facebook because of status updates/ comments made, I have grown tired of the constant ads and am now being forced to see what everyone "likes" in my feed.  Our generation has become "Like" hungry and in doing so spends more time on the computer trying to get complete strangers to "like" their photo of a little child with a life threatening disease instead of going out and doing something about it.  Getting a million likes will not save that child's life! All of this being said, I have grown tired of Facebook. 

For a while now, Josh and I have been discussing what to do about this problem.  I miss the good ol' days when Facebook was all about sharing your life with your friends and family and keeping in touch.  It has now become a bombardment of ads and an unwelcome infiltration of pictures, statuses and stories from people I don't even know.  Facebook has also become an enabler for me.  It has enabled me to stop being personal, to hide behind a computer at an attempt to maintain friendships and life-long bonds with real people.  There is a car commercial out there that says something along the lines of, tonight you can stay in and "like" something, or you can go out and live it... That shook me.  When did I stop writing letters?  When did I stop calling my family and friends to wish them a happy birthday?  And more importantly, WHY did I ever stop?   The truth hit me square in the face... Because I am lazy. 

Facebook is perfect for people who want to be lazy in life.  I am not saying that everyone on it is lazy... far from it actually, I am saying that it was that for me.  I stopped feeling the need to call my friends and family thinking, oh they know what I'm doing because they see it on facebook.  They don't need pictures in the mail or a hand written letter, they can see it all on facebook.  I'd run into friends I hadn't seen in a while and there would be nothing to catch up on because they already knew everything.  I miss sharing.  I miss the intimacy of a good glass of wine and a friend to talk to.  I miss being personal.  So this year I am doing something I never thought I'd do.  I am saying goodbye to Facebook.

Josh and I discovered that the only real use we have for it now is for pictures.  For those of you who know me, you know my love for photography and capturing life's moments.  I have somehow accumulated 13,989 uploaded pictures and a whopping 262 albums.  I have been on Facebook since November 14, 2004.  That is over 8 years!  This is going to be a big change for me. 

I still want to share my life with you, pictures and life events, don't get me wrong.  My desire is to do it in a more personal way.  Being able to quickly post a status or upload some photos without talking about it was very convenient... My goal is to make an effort to do things in a way that is fulfilling to my heart and soul.  This blog is an incredible outlet for me.  An online journal if you will.  My mood is brightened and my heart lighter after I write.  So, updates will be posted here (make sure to subscribe if you haven't already).  Just as much for myself as it is for friends and family.  For those of you who do want to see the millions of mundane pictures I take of life, friends, family, food, and sweet little Callie on a daily basis, you are more than welcome to follow me on Instagram.  If you don't know what Instagram is, it's pretty much twitter with photos. 

I am hopeful that making this shift will help me on the journey to rediscovering my joy.  A lot of thought and prayer have gone into this decision and I feel at peace with it.  It makes me uncomfortable, and that is how I know that it is right. 

I'd love to hear what your goals are for this new year, call me or post them below!  I am saying goodbye to lazy and convenient... here's to a more personal, intimate, fulfilling year!  Welcome, 2013!! 

Info for staying in touch:

• If you want my number to stay in touch and don't have it just send me a message! 
• You can follow me on instagram by searching for "NickiLynne15"
• This website URL is Morgans2Day.blogspot.com.  You should be able to subscribe on this page in the upper right corner.  I think the only thing you'll need is your email address and you'll get an update every time something is posted.  :)