Revisiting those pesky new years resolutions

Well, we are now at the end of April (how time really does fly), and I thought I would have a look back at my new years resolutions...which I never achieve.

So #1 - bed time! Well it started out well, I was going to bed earlier.Which meant waking up more refreshed. And then something happened.... SHEA ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM!! After 7 years, two kids, it FINALLY happened, and I of course accepted! We just celebrated our engagement on the weekend.

Now, yes its very exciting, but me being me, meant that the anxiety of planning a wedding set in. I started spending endless hours on Pinterest (as my poor Twitter followers would have noticed) searching for DIY ideas and every other aspect of wedding planning.

So...the bed time routine has gone out the window... Time to get back on track with that one!

#2 - Balance... Things have gone up and down in this aspect of my life. I started the Michelle Bridges 12WBT, which includes 6 days a week of training. Hockey season also kicked in which is 2 times a week. Add working 4 days a week, children with various sporting and social activities, preping all of the healthy food, trying to spend time with my sisters and extended famliy (you can see where I am going here) and you have one tired mumma.

This started to affect my health, always getting sick so S has forced me over and over to take a break from the training to get back on top of it, but then once I got back into training... BAM! Sick again...actually while I sit here typing this I am home from work with the FLU!

But I have changed my work hours, so now I do 3 full days which means I now have an extra day with Brody - with is AWESOME! And I have more time to plan our wedding....which is now only 199 DAYS AWAY!

#3 - Getting sexy!!

The 12WBT has been tough, I am not going to lie. Training 6 days a week, and a calorie limit of 1,200 a day. But it has been working! Ive now lost a total of 24.5kgs and am fitting back into my pre-Tyler clothes!!! Its amazing people! I feel so fit, its great. Even my skinny jeans, got too big and I have had to 'down size' (YES!!).

I have got 2 weeks left of the challenge and still have 7.5kgs to lose (um...not going to happen), but I am too sick to push myself for big results, so I am being sensible and resting. I am going to sign up for the 2nd round which starts in May, to keep my on track to my goal...and get me sexified for my wedding dress.

I have done a few fun runs and also the Relay for Life, in which I did around 28 kilometres in 4 hours.

I am doing a 5km fun run on Mothers Day which I am training for..... Wish me luck!!

After I finish the round I am going to be BRAVE and post some before and after pictures...which are SCARY!

Until next time when I am sick and have time to post...catch ya!

Axx

Kids mess... And being grateful for it!

As hard as I try to keep my house tidy, 10 minutes later (if that) it looks like a gang of angry raccoons has made its way through every inch of my house!

But you know what? I don't mind. Intake a big breath and appreciate the mess.

I follow alot of mummy blogs. Mummy blogs about their struggle to have their babies, their struggle with the loss of their baby, the awful unimaginable sickness their child endures and sometimes the ending of that child's life.

It makes my heart ache so much. My partner insists that I stop reading them as I get very emotional. But I don't. And you know why?...

Because it keeps me REAL as a mother. Appreciative of the amazing healthy babies I have. Even after suffering my own miscarriage.

Yes, we are human, we all have our bad days when life seems like a burning pile of dog poop. But really... We are so lucky.

I'm grateful for the mess; for standing all over little match box cars, for the crayon on the walls, for the dirty hand prints on the clean mirrors, for the embarrassing supermarket tantrums, for the endless amounts of washing. And yes, even the poopy nappies!

I want to send special hugs to Courney at "EB"ing a Mommy. Tripp is a special soul, who captured my heart. He will be the cutest angel in the sky. RIP little drummer boy. X

Ax

The trials and tribulations of breastfeeding.

I read an amazing blog post by Mooshinindy just recently called: The one about me not being able to breastfeed. Some of the things written really hit the nail on the head for me and my experiences with breastfeeding...well, my attempt to anyway!

"Many bodies out there don’t produce what comes naturally to so many others. Some bodies don’t produce enough tears, some bodies don’t produce enough insulin, some bodies don’t produce enough estrogen, some bodies don’t produce sweat, some bodies don’t produce sperm and some bodies don’t produce babies.
Just because someone has all the parts doesn’t mean they all work in harmony (or at all.)
But a body that doesn’t produce breastmilk is the only one that is judged both openly and silently on a fairly regular basis."

I attempted to breastfeed with both of my children.

With Tyler, I was very young (19). When I first held him in the hospital, it was the first time I had ever held a baby in my entire life - so needless to say I was crapping myself with fear. It was like trying to drive a manual truck in a forgein country, when you have never even driven a car!

I wanted to breastfeed, so I tried. He did not latch for the first few days as he was full of mucus and was so out of it. I spent those days trying to at least express but nothing seemed to be happening. On about day 4, T was latching...for about 2 seconds!! Then when no milk was coming through instantly, so he would scream and refuse to go back on. He was not eating. So we had to suppliment with formula.

The next day my milk came through quickly - so quickly I ended up with mastitis - but I had no idea. T finally started chomping (thats right, not sucking, chomping) and it was so painful, my nipples were a mess and they were bleeding. I started waking with chills and fevers when T was about 7 days old, but being so young I had just assumed it was probably normal after birth. But I was wrong. The next day I couldnt move, my body seized. My partner was at work and I couldnt get ahold of him. My little sister (16 at the time) had to come and look after a newborn, while my other sister took me to the hospital.

After painkillers and lots of pumping the mastitis started to reduce. I was so shaken by the whole thing. I had terrible baby blues and just cried and cried. I felt like a failure. I decided I wanted to try and keep feeding, but everytime T latched, my nipples would just bleed and I would sob in pain. It certainly wasnt the beautiful bonding experience I thought it would be!

I tried to pump, feed that to him, and then pump again for his next feed. He was an awful reflux baby who would take a good hour to burp - so by the time that was done, and I had gotten him to sleep, and then expressed, I had about an hours sleep before he was back up.

I couldnt maintain this. Oh how badly I wanted to, but I couldnt. My mum tried to encourage me to keep going but I was done. Drained...and very SORE.

But I finally had freedom! S was able to help me more, I was able to sleep more. We were all happy, full, and no longer crying in pain!

With Brody, I had a more successful experience, and we were exclusively breastfeeding for the first 3 weeks. I did come up againt mastitis again but we got through it. The thing that brought this to an abrupt unexpected end was the death of the most important person in my life, my mother. I will blog about this in my next post.

LOVE & LIGHT

My first post!

Welcome!

I have been contemplating starting a Blog for some time now but really had to consider if I would have the time as a busy working mum to keep up to date with the posts.
Well... here goes! I'll try anything once!

Through my Blog I will share my thoughts and experiences as a young mother of two boys, the struggle I have daily grieving the loss of my Mum to cancer, my passions and my fears.

I also am a freelance Makeup Artist (when I have time... time? What's that?!) so I will be blogging about makeup, beauty and fashion.

ENJOY!