I’m 30 and I no longer feel trapped.

This time last year I was struggle with where I wanted to land in life. I felt like I needed change, movement. I felt trapped in motherhood, in my job, in my marriage. I blamed a lot of my issues on my husband and took no reasonability. Until one day, I woke up looked myself in the mirror and faced the hard truths.

I was making the choices to live life trapped. I chose to stay in a job that surrounded me in hate and drama. I chose to feel trapped by the reasonability's of motherhood and not look pass the mundane and see the joy of it. I chose to see the bad in my husband because I didn’t want to see my wrong doings. I also allowed others to influence me about the bad he held more then the good he did for me everyday.

I did those things until I said to myself no more.

Here is the promise I stated to myself last year on my blog.

“I am going to purge the unnecessary and decrease the clutter physically, materialistically and emotionality. I will hug the ones I love, find the best in them and in others and show others the best in me. I will learn to be okay with doing things on my own and not let the stop me from having the adventures I crave. I will stop talking bad about the people I love the most. This year I will push myself out of my comfort zone. Try new things and be okay with making a mistake in the process.”

Can I say that I have come out of it all with new clarity and that I didn’t resort back to my old ways? No. But what I can say is that I made changes in my life and I no longer feel trapped. 

I got a new job, that I love. A job that allows me to have more time with my kids which helped me love motherhood more. I started to look at my husband in a new light and see how hard he actually works for me, I started to write down in a personal journal the little things he’d do for me everyday. Which brought back the love I knew I had for him.

I stopped listening to those who told me that he wasn’t worth my love and saw for myself that he in fact was. I also stopped telling myself that I wasn’t good enough.

Although this year has been a tuff one for me as I deal with my toddler being diagnosed with apraxia  and possibly autism. The death of my Father in law and also the surprise pregnancy that has had its own medical issues. I can say that if I didn’t change my path this time last year I would not have made it through this year like I have.

On the 11th I turned the BIG 30 and I can honestly say that with out a doubt I am better then I ever been and I can not wait to continue on this journey surrounded by my kids and my loving adoring selfless husband who chooses me to stand with him and not against him.

In Pictures: Add on Progression

In pictures: Wyatt’s 7th birthday party

Every year the kids switch off who will get the “Big Themed” Birthday party (since it can get pretty crazy planning so many so close to each other.) This year it was Wyatt’s turn. We of course had to go with a space theme since he is soooo into space.

I love when parties actually include games for the kids to do instead of just letting them go off and play. I also love to include my kids in the planning. I asked Wyatt what he would want to do for the game and he came up with an obstacle course. It was perfect.

When needed to find away to separate each group to go through the obstacle course to compete against each other to have a winning team, So we made them into divisions and made them some cool name badges.

When each kid arrived I had them put their name on their badge which then would separate them into teams for the game. We had the “Smarty Division” and the “Mad Division”  which was listed on their badge.

Once we started the game the “smarties” had to come and get dressed in nerd glasses and fill their pockets with smartys. The also had to wear a lab coat which was my dad’s old nursing coats. The Mad scientist for the mad division had to dress up in slinky eye glasses that you can find at the dollar store and fill their pockets with body part candy (which I found at a local grocery store which we lucked out since Wyatt’s birthday is close to Halloween) and they also had to wear lab coats.

When they all got dressed the first obstacle was to unscramble space words before moving on to the next station. My dad dressed up as a mad scientist and they had to give him the cards to see if they could move on. If they got it correct he gave them Mentos to test the rocket fuel (a bottle of coke) which was the second station.

Once they tested the rocket fuel they had to crawl through streamers and bubble wrap which we called “space” and make sure that all the bubble wrap was popped. (we were going to through bouncy balls at them and call it meteors but I forgot the balls) When they finally got out of space they landed on the moon which was a watermelon box we spray painted into a moon and filled with pillows and blankets. To “land” on the moon they had to jump into the box.

Then run back to the rocket ship that I built out of boxes. Whose ever team all got there first won.

It was a blast to see them running around. They had a lot of fun. 

We then did cake and presents but we had the party start later in the evening so it would get dark before they left.

After the cake, I passed out glow sticks I mean a ton of glow sticks and let them have at it. The built some cool things and run around playing and chasing each other in the dark. Over all it was a success. See for your self.

I tried to take as many pictures as I could. I also included the invite I made and the name tags as well as the space scramble. Feel free to use any of those.

 

The party didn’t cost me a lot because I did mostly everything my self. (besides the amazing cake that my husband’s co-worker made.) The decorations were simple black table cloths filled with star stickers. I also drew black alien eyes on green balloons and had star streamers hanging down everywhere.

The highlights of course were the rocket ship that I spray painted and put together and the moon as well. The boxes for the rocket I got from my old work (thanks friends) and the watermelon box I got from my husband who works in produce. So the cost for those was just the spray paint.

so all in all the party cost me about $150. That was for the glasses, the printing of the tags, spray paint, bubble wrap, food, cake, and decorations. If we adding in Wyatt’s costume (found online) that would be another $100. That thing was expensive but he used it for this and Halloween plus all the playtime in between. well worth it for me.

Happy birthday Wyatt. I hope you enjoyed your 7th birthday party.