We started out the year in Cincinnati and came home a few days after school had started. We were definitely ready to get back into the swing of things and find a groove that fit our family. Jake has been working night shifts at the local behavioral hospital and is enjoying it! He has already come home with a lot of crazy stories. I am really proud of him because working full time night shifts has got to be one of the most exhausting things. On top of that, he's a full-time student, teaching anatomy, and doing research with a professor! It's been interesting trying to find a rhythm that works for us where we don't all three feel drained and we are finally getting there.
I have been working at Jake's aunt's business M-F from 8-12. It's been the perfect amount of hours and it's nice making some extra money on the side! Most of the time June comes with me and plays with Emma, her little cousin that is about the same age, or I have a family member watch her. Luckily I never work more than a few hours so I don't feel like I am spending too much time away from June.
It's been nice to work and have something else to do besides be a mom and wife. Although I truly feel like those roles are my "calling" in life, I'm not quite busy enough to not go crazy with that being the only thing on my plate. So having a part-time job and one class to finish online before I graduate, I am feeling like this is my sweet spot!
June is growing bigger and smarter every day. This is definitely the best age yet. She's still cuddly, loves being with me (maybe a little too much sometimes), but I also see her gaining some independence. She has been taking more solo steps lately and I can seriously see it in her eyes when she realizes she can do it and feels confident. She doesn't take more than 4 steps in a row usually, but she truly does get better and more confident every day! On top of that, she learned the word "DOG"! We have two my little pet shop dogs and she loves them. They are the most random toys but she holds them and will just crawl around the house with at least one of them in her hand. Anyway, for weeks I would tell her it was a dog. Or I would point our a dog if we saw one outside and I always point them out in her books telling her they say "woof woof". One day I was asking her if she could say dog and she just said it! Now every time she sees her little toy dog or any kind of animal (like the cat on the bag of cat food at Trader Joe's) she says "dog"!
One activity that Jake and I have been doing together lately is working on redoing the entire Seven Brothers Farm website! It's been a really fun late night activity for us to do together while June sleeps, although we have definitely learned that we would probably not work well together ALL DAY haha but we do good work as a team. It's been really fun to learn a new skill with WordPress and gets me excited about vamping up this blog one day (probably switching to WordPress one day!). We have seriously learned how to make a very simple pretty website. It has taken us HOURS AND HOURS hahaha but it's been super fun.
That's about it on an update for us. We're trying to budget better and make more homemade meals this year so we can both be a little healthier. Jake started crossfit for the month with his brother Aaron. I've been doing at least 20 minutes of yoga daily. It's been great and I'm hoping we both keep it up with a little bit of a "healthier" life style (I still love my daily coke from McDonald's. I will probably never give that up lol)
