Cabin Fever

Cabin fever. It's here and it's real. This winter has been brutal with at least 3 feet of snow and a current temp of 3 degrees. Let me tell you how happy I am to be in Ohio right now.... I'm not.

To beat the winter blues, we try to get out and have some indoor fun. So we found a Fun n Stuff one weekend and spent half the day playing, jumping, skating, and climbing. The kids had a blast and we all went home exhausted.

And as always, only the best phone quality pics for you. ;)

Alena made it to the top!

Anyone else stuck in the cold and snow or are you lucky to live where it's sunny and warm?

Winter "Wonder"land

I don't know about you, but I am ready for Spring! I'm over this so called Winter Wonderland Ohio has. It was beautiful in the beginning... when you're not having to go out in it. We've easily got about two feet of snow on the ground and more snow is expected. My car has been stuck in the snow twice already. OVER IT!

Poor Noah only gets to watch from the window.

Alena and my dad built a snowman. He took Noah out real quick to feel the snow and a picture (He was not actually out playing like that).

The road and driveway are gone.

And let me tell you about my recent drive home from Columbus. I went down to attend a business training  for my doula business. It was a three hour drive down with clear roads. Throughout the day the weather was going between rain and snow, increasing to snow later in the day. The kids spent the day with my sister who lives down there. I picked them up and we went out for dinner before making the trek home. It was snowing pretty heavily and I just knew I should have hit up a drive-thru and went home. By the time we were actually heading north, the snow was ridiculous and the roads were horrible. So bad, in fact, that I slid right on through a red light with no hopes of stopping. Thank the Lord that it was not a busy intersection and the few cars there saw me coming and didn't go.

My three hour drive turned into five hours, averaging 25-35 mph the entire way. Talk about a white knuckle experience. We passed a total of 9 accidents, 7 of which were on a 20 mile strip just north of Columbus. The picture below was what I saw that whole way. No lines and everyone just guessing where on the road they were.

Spring, where are you?!

That Time I Started My Own Business

Say what?! I know, I can hardly believe it myself. If you've noticed, I've been quite a lot absent from the ole' blog lately. I've been working hard and keeping busy trying to get it up and off the ground.

Back in 2013, not long before I had Noah, I took the leap to follow my dreams to become a birth doula, postpartum doula, childbirth educator, and lactation consultant. I've been chugging along at a snail's pace to get certified in all four. Something happened some time last fall to give me the kick I needed to jump into working. I spent a whole lot of time and a little bit of money to create a website and get this business going.

My car magnets and business cards. Aren't they beautiful?!

I've been waiting and waiting for "the right time"to launch but realized that time will never come if I don't just jump into it! NOW is the perfect time.

I have such a love of everything pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding related and am 100% convinced that this is the perfect career path for me. I want women to take back birth and own it. They should be able to look back at their labor and birth and feel satisfied and happy.

I created Safe and Sound Doula to serve most of North East Ohio and even parts of Western Pennsylvania.

I have a website:

Safe and Sound Doula

And Facebook:

Safe and Sound Doula

I'm so so so excited to get started and serve expectant families on one of the most important day of their lives!

Wordless Wednesday - Let it Snow

Sub zero temps + lots of snow = an unhappy, cabin fevered me.

Wordless Wednesday - Fall's Beauty

With snow in the forecast tomorrow, let's have another look at what we'll be missing. This is the sight coming to my sister's house and her yard. Beautiful but gosh, that's a LOT of leaves to rake.

Dog Days of Summer

With summer winding down and the weather turning fast, excuse me while I flood you with posts from our final beach weather days. We've been so busy playing outside while we can, getting into home schooling (more on that in another post), and thoroughly enjoying our time together that I had put a hold on blogging.

This was from back in August when the kids and I headed to Lake Erie, or the "sea" as the kids called it. Can you tell they're Arizona born and bred?



A little nurse and nap time.

Weekend Rewind - Over the 4th

Without a doubt, my favorite holiday weekend is the 4th of July. My hometown has an annual Ox Roast every year and it is always a great opportunity to see family and friends that I don't get to see very often all in one place.

My weekend started on Thursday. I took the kids out to see fireworks. I thought Noah would love it but after about 30 seconds, he was done and wanted to do nothing but run around. I spent the next 20 minutes chasing him... Hence, no firework pictures.

Friday, we headed out to the Ox Roast and the weather was just beautiful. It was probably the best 4th of July weather we've had in a very long time so people were out in droves. It was crowded, so crowded. But that's a great thing since this is how our local fire dept raises their money for the year! Besides visiting with friends and family, my second reason for going is lemonade. There is one stand there and it is SO good. We made a few laps and had several goodies, like ice cream. :) I'm fortunate to have an aunt and uncle that live right there so when we needed a break, we stopped by and the kids were able to run off some of their energy with cousins.

Someone had a good time and was wiped out.

I had to work (oh yeah, I got a job!) on Saturday afternoon and night so we didn't go to the Ox Roast and there are no pictures.

We went back for the Ox Roast's last day and another round of goodies on Sunday. Then we headed home and enjoyed the weather some more.

His first time ever wearing pj's.

The only thing that would have made it better would be having Gabe home with us, of course. I got to celebrate our 9th (how has it been NINE years already?!) wedding anniversary (July 8) alone for the first time ever. :( Excuse me a moment while I throw myself a mini pity party....

OK, I'm done. How did you spend your 4th of July weekend?

Making the Adjustment

After living back in Ohio for the past six weeks, reality is starting to set in... and set in hard. We do not live in Arizona anymore and never will again. All those things that we always thought we would have time to do and kept pushing to the back burner, the places we wanted to go, gone. It's too late.

This was our fourth cross country move so therefore I was sure it would be easier. HAH! It's not. The kids and I are staying with my parents and that in itself is a challenge all its own. Just finding room to put our stuff or store it is a difficult and slow process. The moving pod we used is currently at a local U-Haul (10 miles away) and I've only gotten a quarter of it emptied. I'm having to separate our things between three houses and loading and unloading it all on my own.

Our moving pod still with tons left. Oy!

Another adjustment that many wouldn't think much about is that a quick trip to the store is no longer actually quick. In Arizona, everything was less than 15 minutes away. Now, 15+ minutes is a normal time and distance resulting in a "quick" trip taking at least an hour... IF I'm alone and get in and out of the store fast.


The weather. Can I talk about the weather?! Thankfully, we are not into the hot and humid days yet but we have experienced a few days like that and it was not pleasant. Not pleasant at all. Come July, you'll probably be able to find me on the floor in a puddle of sweat camped out in front of a fan trying to find some sort of relief. I won't even mention the winters because I'm just going to hibernate this year.


The time change, oh the time change! Arizona does not do daylight savings and boy do I miss that. It made bedtime SOOO much easier. Daylight was always over by 9 pm at the latest during the summer. But here, the kids are still trying to stay up later because duh mom! There is still light outside. They're having a hard time with that adjustment.


I really hate to sound like I'm complaining or ungrateful so I'll just move on to the GOOD adjustments.


I can see my family more than once a year! I love love love to see the kids playing with their cousins. I grew up in a large family with literally hundreds (not exaggerating at all, my parents came from families of 12 kids) of cousins and I can still remember the family get-togethers where we would all play hide and seek, kick the can, tag, and all those other fun games that we played until dark and even after.

There is room to roam. People have yards with room to play and run and you can't look directly into your neighbors' yards/houses. That was probably my biggest complaint about Arizona (or at least city) living. The yards were teeny tiny and even if you lived in the Arizona countryside, you didn't have beautiful green yards (unless you worked HARD at it) where kids could run barefoot without having to worry about stepping on things that would hurt you. That's the other thing. In Ohio, we don't have to try to grow grass. It just does! We had to water our yard EVERY day in Arizona if we wanted any hope of a green yard.

I could prattle on and on about the adjustments I'm making or the differences between the two places but I'll spare you or turn it into a whole post in itself. :) My point was that things aren't going according to how I thought they would (do they ever?!) and making these adjustments is taking a little longer.

Vacation - Water Fun in Ohio

Some day I will be done with these vacation posts, promise. Really.

Here are my favorite photos from a fun day we spent with a slip and slide and cousins.

I am LOVING this action shot!