MM: Sandi of AdaLou

Hey look! Mommyhood Monday is back! And I'm super excited about who is sharing today. Sandi wears a lot of different hats- but the cutest one has to be mama of two adorable kiddos. Her is what Sandi had to say about her experience in motherhood:

Name and blog: Sandi Devenny of AdaLou

Kid's name(s) and age(s): Wyeth age 4, Penelope age 2

Favorite part of being a mom: I love sitting back and being able to watching both of our kids grow, play and learn. It amazes me to see how they discover new things, interact with each other and process it all. I love watching them get excited over what seems to me like "the little things" but through their eyes it's all "big new exciting things". Like we recently rode the carousel at the zoo for the first time. Not only was it was a huge hit, but then listening to Wyeth talked about it for days after, and explaining to us in great depth how cool it and if I saw all those mechanical parts worked together to make it go around and around. It was so interesting to me getting his perspective of it all and how his little mind is comprehending things. It's the little things like this plus us (as a family) being able to share in their excitement of new discoveries which I love most. That and both of our kids have a great sense of humor, so the laughing session and topics for discussion which take place in our home are at the top of the things I love too.

Most challenging part of being a mom: Managing time to juggle it all. It's a lot of work being a mom, there's no doubt about it. For me, time management is so important. We stick to schedules to help with some of this but I'm not only juggle being a full time mom, but I'm a wife, illustrator, full time (9-5) working designer, freelancer, blogger, handmade and vintage seller, and the list goes on. Because my family is most important to me I push aside a lot of what I do personally until my kiddos are fast asleep, after 8. Multi-tasking and juggling it all is surely something I'll continue to work on. And is by far one of the biggest challenge I think I'll always face.    

Best parenting tip/advice you've received: Try to document by journaling or taking photos to look back upon. The misters grandmother told us this when our son was first born. She mentioned she kept journals all thru the years of her kids and things they did and now she can pull them out to read all about old stories from their past. Now, obviously we (the mister and I) can't catch everything, but we carry a camera daily to do our best to snap photos of everyday life. It's been important to us to be able to look back and enjoy these memories. We also keep notes about special conversations, things we did and loved, random bits of nonsense, etc. Life in general is one big journal which we're slowly documented along the way.

I love the advice from Sandi's grandma-in-law. I would love to be better at capturing cute everyday things. Thanks Sandi!

♥