First Time Mama - First Time Blogger

Monday, July 29, 2013

Date Night - Much needed Sanity

Brian and I try to get a babysitter and go out alone every couple of weeks. We need to do it for our sanity. You need "alone" time with your spouse when you have kids - you HAVE to make that happen. I am not someone who thinks your children always come first. Wait, let me explain - Yes, they are obviously very important and they always come first - however you can not put your marriage on hold or have it not exist while you raise your kids. You won't have a marriage pretty soon if you do that. You must make time for you and your spouse, no matter how you do it.

We don't have a whole lot of extra help, so we make due with what we have. If I had my way, I would plan a date night every weekend, but we just can't do it. We have a really trustworthy & reliable babysitter (that comes to our house) and we use often - thank goodness for Jill! Most times, we go out for a nice dinner and a glass of wine, and just relax, talk, laugh and enjoy the time without children.

This past week, we asked Jill to come on a Thursday night. We took the boat out and anchored in a small cove... we had some appetizers and a glass of wine, listened to nice music and relaxed while watching the sun set ... and watched day turn to night & watched the stars come out. (Not too many stars that night as it was kind of cloudy, but it was still nice!). It was a cool night (maybe 60 degrees on the water) and once the sun went down, we were one of the only boats out there.... we had a blanket with us and we snuggled under there to get warm.

Sunset as we were heading up past Racoon Island.

Our romantic dinner...

So beautiful & peaceful to look at while being the only ones out on Lake Hopatcong.

You'd never know there was a house every 40 to 60 feet along the shoreline of the entire lake from these pictures; and the lake is 9 miles long with many little coves, islands & bridges.

Monday, July 22, 2013

You can't forget about the fun stuff

...But first, a potty training update...

I will be the first to admit, I didn't expect Julianna to do so well potty training. I wasn't 100% sure that she would really take to it even though we talked about it for a few weeks leading up to this past week. Actually by Tuesday morning, I was ready to give up. Julianna was fighting me over going to the potty and I was ready to put her back in diapers. Then it clicked for her. I called my girlfriend to bitch about my 'almost failed' potty training... and as I was having my own personal meltdown. As that was going on, Julianna went in the bathroom and went potty on her own and announced it to me! She was SO proud of herself and wanted her sticker and 5 coins - of course I obliged right away! That was it... she hasn't had an accident since last Tuesday morning! The key with her is to not bother her about going {control freak!} - she tells us when she needs to go pee and she does it on her own. She was indeed ready thank goodness!

I ventured out of the house on Thursday and put a pull-up on over her underwear 'just in case' - and she was dry when we got home! I got that idea from my bloggy friend Kim at Granthamania (THANK YOU!!!!)
Then after that, I worked on getting her to go on the potty while we were out - she went at BabiesRus because I bought THESE for her and she loved the idea of having a special seat. After that, we went out Friday night, Saturday and Sunday - she told us that she had to go potty and we would bring her to go. She even now goes on the small potty on the boat! HOORAY!!
She had some false alarms where she froze up and couldn't do it, but then we would try again later and she went! She loves the seat covers (thank goodness because as you know I am super germ-phobe mama!).

We promised her a scooter when she was potty trained - so we took her to ToysRUs Saturday to pick out her own scooter. She picked out this one and LOVES it! She is so proud of herself!
Did I mention we did all this training with a 9 week old here too?! LOL! I am a glutton for torture!

All this talk lately of heart surgery, potty training hell, support groups, and mommy losing her mind... I thought "now" was a good time to put some pictures out there of fun times. We spend a lot of time out on our boat ... so it would only seem normal if all my summer pictures are from there too!

Our Marina