Big News!

No, I'm not pregnant...and yes mom I know next time I get pregnant it needs to be a girl.  But I have put in my notice at my job and will be staying home with the boys come June 21st. My job is something I don’t typically talk about on here.  Not because I don’t like it, but because it’s been extremely tough for me to work for the last 3 years and not be home with my babies.  But it’s been what has needed to happen for the last few years so I have tried to suck it up and get through it (sometimes succeeding at that, sometimes failing miserably).  Dane has dealt with countless tears from me as I’ve struggled to go to work and we’ve struggled to find a way to make it work for me to stay home.  A lot of times I think it’s been harder on him than it has been on me.  The biggest thing has always been insurance.  We’ve always had insurance through my job and that’s been our only real option.  However, Dane worked his charm (or explained that he could no longer deal with me telling him how hard it was and all my crying) and got his job to figure it out and get insurance for the boys and me.  WOOOHOOOOOOOO!  I am beyond excited to finally be able to get to do this.  I feel like the last 3 years have gone by so quickly and I can’t wait to be there all the time with the kids.  Granted I know how hard staying home will be and that it’s quite a job in itself, but all my working mama friends know how tough it is to work full time plus have to be a mom, home maker and provider all at once.  It’s beyond challenging to find the time some days and it’s somewhat ridiculous that lately I feel like I’ve learned to function on 5-6 hours of sleep and am consuming the amount of caffeine that I am each day.  The other day I got a latte with 4 shots of espresso in it – think I need to cut back… J I have been very fortunate to end up where I have career wise.  I very randomly stumbled into oil and gas (I was initially interviewing for a receptionist job that I’d been setup with through a temp agency and ending up interviewing with the VP of the land department).  For the last 5 years I have worked as a land tech and have grown a lot in my knowledge and where I’ve gone (working at Antero, PDC Energy and now Anadarko).  The job I’m leaving now is with Anadarko and there is seriously not a better company to work for.  The people are great, my managers are awesome and I feel like I’ve truly made great friends through it all.  It’s funny that a little liberal girl who is fairly environmentally concerned has ended up in this industry but it’s really a great one to be in.  Anadarko really stresses the importance of work life balance (every other Friday off and 5 weeks vacation isn’t too shabby, eh?) and that’s helped out a lot since having Landon.  But I’m excited for the next stage for me.  We were also so sad to leave our daycare provider, Tonya.  She has been beyond amazing with both the boys and Carter and her little boy, Brody (who is just shy of a year older than Carter) became such good buddies.  Dane and I both absolutely adored her and were sad to leave.  For the next few weeks the boys will be getting some quality time with the grandparents while I finish up work (didn’t make sense to find a new daycare in Castle Rock).  I’m currently in the process of trying to get my own daycare started up to run out of our house and hope to find a couple kids to watch to help contribute to our family.  I’m sure there will be days where I will long for my nice quiet office again but I think the tradeoff will be well worth it.  One good thing of working is I can appreciate staying home and all that it entails and will LOVE the fact that I don’t have to commute anymore!!!  Working downtown is fun, driving downtown is not so fun a lot of times.  When I took 4 months off for maternity leave I was so thankful for the time I had and that was with being exhausted, a newborn and a 2 year old who was constantly getting into stuff while undressing himself and peeing everywhere.  I figure if I enjoyed that now that they’re 1 and 3 it’ll be a lot more fun!  So we’ll see where life takes us and what happens but I appreciate all the opportunities I’ve had and can’t wait for the next chapter of my new “career!”  

Here's my view all day

I also will eventually have lots of pictures to post of the new house.  We've been busy cleaning and painting and organizing so I've not had time for much more the last couple weeks.  Hopefully I can get something up soon.  It's been lots and lots of work though but eventually it'll be a really nice little house for us!