Hello there, I thought it might be time for me to hop on here and give you guys a life lately update! It’s been since March since I’ve done one of these (read that one here if you are new) and I miss doing them! To be completely honest, we have been in a stressful season of life over here. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in my days to get everything done. Being a wife, mom of four and running a blog part time (I don’t ever say full time because I don’t want it to be my full time job, being a mom is my full time job even though some days it feels like blogging is full time) is hard. I really suck at it as of lately and thats okay! I know that having 4 small children 6 and under is a lot and honestly I’m totally fine with where I am right now. There have been days were I stress about not having enough content for you guys, not having cute outfits to post every dang day and days that I think I need to engage with y’all more often but the truth is…I just can’t do it all. Nor do I want to appear to y’all that I can. I promised myself when I started this blog as an actual way to bring in income for my family that I would always be real, never conform or ever let it consume me. It’s hard in a world driven by financial/number success! There are days where I let it get the best of me and feel like I’m not growing like I should be or getting enough page views to feel worthy of success and then I get messages from you guys saying you stumbled upon some blog post and it spoke to your heart and then I forget all those silly worries! I don’t write for success, or praise I write from my heart to hopefully touch others. Yes, I also post things we love and things we use and I enjoy sharing those things with you but what I enjoy more is the deep stuff, the stuff that gives you chills when a follower says they have had something on their heart for months and the words you typed allowed them to fully feel what they had been pushing back for so long. It’s those moments where I know this space is exactly what it needs to be!
Whew, went down a rabbit hole there and I started this post as something totally different in mind! See what happens there when you just open up and share what God puts on your heart! So now for what I really came to share. I’ve had a few of you message me questions and then I opened it up to you guys to ask anything you wanted to know so I thought I would answer them here because I know several people miss IG stories so this is a better reference!
I also realized I hadn’t shared any pictures from Sway’s newborn lifestyle shoot with Monica Bartels Photography!
1. What does your husband do for a living?
I actually get this all of the time which makes me laugh! My husband is a salesman for a agricultural business. He sells things like cotton seed, fertilizer, chemicals, etc! It’s basically like being married to a farmer without the crop! ha! If farmers don’t have a good year, we don’t either!
2. Is your new house your forever home? When will y’all move in?
I honestly think that is very hard to say. Yes we plan to be here for a very long time unless the Lord has different plans for us. We have designed every inch of this house from the floor plan down to the grout so seeing it come to life has been so super fun, yet super stressful! I have done all the design choices myself with no help from an actual designer so I’ll either be super proud of it or kicking myself in the butt for not having someone help me! haha! We are about 6 weeks from finishing our house so hopefully everything goes smooth from here on out! I have so many more fun updates I want to share plus a tour but I am waiting until a few more fun things get handled!
3. Have y’all sold your house yet?
Remember when I said we have been in a stressful season. Well this is a huge reason for the stress. No, we haven’t sold our house as of yet. We have had several devastating issues with this and to be honest it has been so hard on us as a family. Selling a house in general is stressful but try adding 4 kids! It’s been physically and emotionally exhausting and I can’t wait for it to all be over. We are just clinging to God’s timing and knowing it will all work out perfectly but let me tell you. There have been tears, and lots of them.
4. When do you transition naps from 4x/day to 3/2/1? Also what sleep training method do you use?
I wrote an entire sleep blog here. But I honestly don’t have a perfect answer for that question. I go by the cues of my children. Greleigh took 2 naps a day for forever it seemed and Huxx has been at one nap for a long time. I think it totally depends on life, how the kid is transitioning and your schedules. Keep those naps as longggggggg as possible 😉
5. How did you know you were done having kids?
Well I wrote a blog post on this here and our heart behind having 4 kids. I honestly think I will always be one of those people who mourns the season of babies ending.
6. How do you stay organized with all the things you are involved with?
Oh boy….I have whoever wrote this fooled! HA! My life is honestly one giant circus at any given time! I try my hardest to not spread myself too thin but sometimes I look up and I’m like waiiitttt a minute, I’m literally drowning! One of the biggest helps in keeping it all together is my husband. Honestly, couldn’t do it without him. Since my blog has grown and I do a lot more with it now I’ve had to explain to him things I need help with, why I’m on my phone etc because there were days that we didn’t align in our thoughts on my job! He is now my biggest supporter and understands exactly what all goes on behind the scenes and does any and everything he can to help me! I also use this planner and my phone to keep everything situated but I’m not trying to fool anyone, my house is a wreck, my car is embarrassing and my kids sometimes sleep in the clothes they wear to school so theres that! #boom
7. What do you do with things companies send you that you don’t use?
Well I’m pretty picky in brands that I partner with because I always want to stay true to myself and really know that when I recommend something to you guys that I truly do love it! So there aren’t many things that I don’t use but in the instance there are, like makeup or products that are doubled and I find things I like better or something I either give them to family/friends or sell them on local BST pages! When a company sends things a lot of times they have a contract that says this product can’t be sold for xx of days!
8. Tips for keeping milk supply up?
Ah I have never had to deal with this problem but just from friends/family who have I know a few! Water intake is crucial. Fenugreek. Enough calories. Lactation cookies. Keep stress at a minimum if possible. Power pump
9. What is your ideal thermostat temp?
I love this lol We currently keep our house about 70 degrees!
10. How do you look so good after 4 kids?
Oh dear, good thing y’all don’t see me out of the shower! HA! No but really, this time around the weight is just not coming off. I may look good in clothes to you guys but I’ve had a really hard time accepting the extra 15lbs that my body is hanging on to. I usually hold on to about 5-7lbs while I’m breastfeeding but this time around it has been 15+ lb lingering….or maybe it’s the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuits! Either way, bodies are miraculous in carrying life and I know I’ll get it off someday. PS. I’m also 5’10 so I can hide weight easier than some of you short girls! (which by the way you always want what you can’t have because I don’t think there is anything cuter than a 5’0 tall girl and her giant husband) Being tall has it’s advantages but also can cause me to be self conscious around petite girls!
11. Best advise to someone who want to blog as a hobby?
Girl, this space is beyond big. You do you and do it confidently. If people doubt you or don’t want you to succeed then they aren’t your people! Success for everyone in this space looks so different, don’t hold back, go for it and be 100% yourself and it will all work out! I actually started my blog a little over 7 years ago and I never even knew back then that there were bloggers who did this for a job or to provide for their family but I’m so glad I discovered. It has changed so much since I started but honestly I just adapt it to my life at the current stage and go with it. I will never label myself as a mom blogger or fashion blogger or fitness blogger or anything like that because there are times in my life where none of that is fitting so I just blog about my life in that moment and go with it!
Again I want to tell you guys how important all of you are to me. I feel like we are all best friends, especially in a season of life where friends are hard to come by. I love each of you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued support. Your DMs, pins, comments, likes, etc mean more to me than you will ever know!
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