Motherhood is hard and not for the faint of heart. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but it's really the hardest thing I've ever had the privilege to do.

My mom wasn't a stay at home mom, she had to work a ton to support our family after my parents split up. So we always had babysitters or fended for ourselves. She did the absolute best she could, and I am so grateful because I know it wasn't easy for her.

Now that I'm a stay at home mom myself I often find myself really confused and upset and thinking I'm totally failing this whole parenthood deal. I'm just never sure if I'm doing a good job.  It's this overwhelming dark cloud and Satan's influence just trying to get me to believe that I'm not good enough, that I'll never be good enough.

We've had a really rough month lately. Mainly because I haven't been able to be as active with Brynlee as I should be.  Her temper tantrums are full out scary screaming fits. It's the most ear piercing screech and every time I just want to slam my face into the wall or run far far away from everyone. It doesn't help that we live in an apartment either with very high ceilings so our neighbors hear absolutely everything. I constantly feel like child protective services is going to be called by how loud Brynlee can scream.  Now it's not like she screams 24 hours a day, there are definitely plenty of fun times as well. Sometimes it's just hard to remember the good parts of the day when your child is having a meltdown. Tonight was one of those nights.  She woke up from her nap just cranky and everything set her off. We finally got dinner ready and we're sitting down at the table and B decides she doesn't want to eat and is yelling "I don't want it!!" Over and over again and pushing her chair away from the table. Then I just snapped I yelled that I had had enough and I went and locked myself in the bathroom for 5 minutes. When I came out everything was fine haha granted she still wasn't eating anything but by then I really didn't care.

We all had a heart to heart about what we needed to change in our parenting. I'm too controlling and  Ben is too lax, we need to find some balance.  Tomorrow is going to be a better day. One that hopefully doesn't have as many tantrums and more laughter. I'm going to try to ease the reigns on things that may not be very important and look for the good. We're going to have a nice day tomorrow, we have a lot to be grateful for and I need to remember that more. Nobody's kids are perfect. It's hard to remember that sometimes, but it's true. Everyone has flaws, even cute toddlers.  Were all just trying to learn and grow more every day.  I'm going to try harder to have more patience and compassion than I have had recently.  I've been too quick to get frustrated and show my frustration with a bad attitude.

Gold, Navy, and Coral Girls Bedroom

Its finally all done.  Like literally...not one more project to do, accessory to buy, or Pinterest pin to pin.  Well actually that's not completely true, I bought a pack of 4 spice racks for her book rack but only ended up using 3 so I'm going to put a small one right above her chalkboard table to hold her erasers and chalk..but that won't happen till this weekend.

Today I made sure to wake up a little bit earlier and put frozen on for Brynlee so I could make her room spotless and while she was busy watching the movie I could take some detail shots of her room.  Some people might think it's weird, but I like to photograph each room in our house every once in a while so I can look back and remember when we move to a different place and get older what it looked like.  It's a little memento that we can show our kids about living in Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and eventually somewhere far far away from Idaho ;) There were a few people who wanted the tutorials for some of the things that I was working on as well, so this is an easy way for ya'll to find the links.

I also wanted to get some more natural shots of Brynlee just doing her thing and playing in her room.  Contrary to popular belief, I do actually take pictures of her in normal clothes not prancing around in fields.  However our apartment most of the time doesn't have the best natural lighting so I'm really limited in when I can shoot that without having to get out my flash.

Brynlee's room was truly a labor of love (combined with some serious nesting!).  I wanted to make a space that she would actually play in and that I could see myself spending some serious time in there as well.  It's probably my favorite room in our apartment.  Here are the links for the DIY projects and some of my favorite items.

Pink and Gold Bedding: Land of Nod
Gold and white curtains: Land of Nod
Navy Rug: Overstock
Small geometric chair:  Walmart
Wall Prints:  Penny Jane Designs
DIY Garland:  tutorial here
DIY Ikea Children's table hack:  tutorial here
DIY Ikea Book Rack hack: tutorial here
DIY Ombre Dresser:  tutorial here