Happy Labor Day Weekend! I wanted to round up a few of my favorite sales and clothing pieces for you. If you follow me on FB or IG, you’ll know that I post a lot of sales from Old Navy. They just ALWAYS seems to be having amazing sales. Today however, I’m going to kick it off with a great sale at Hanna Andersson. The quality of Hanna Andersson is AMAZING and they are having 40% off full price items and you can take an additional 30% off sale items. I’ve included a couple of my favorite boy tops below with the links to the shirts. To check out the entire site, clickhere.
This long sleeve is only $19.20 when you use code SAVEONFALL at checkout.
Justice is also having a Labor Day Sale. You can take an extra 50% off sale items when you use code gimme50 at checkout. I can’t include pictures because I can’t save the images for whatever reason. I’m guessing because the shirts are on actual models??
Children’s Placeis also having a good Labor Day Sale. Because I need to get my kids up for school, I do not have time to post and link my favorite here. BUT it’s worth checking out if you kiddo likes graphic tees and flip sequins.
Hereis the link to this super cute backpack diaper bag I found at Burlington. I know I’ve been posting about clothing sales but when I went to Burlington’s website to check out their sale, this caught my eye immediately and I had to share. It’s only $19.99. Originally $39.99
Alrighty… that’s all I got for you today. I will get better at this blog posting, sale link thing as I do it more. I thought I could squeeze out a few more pictures and sales BUT time has flown by this morning and I have a full day after I drop my kids off at school. I hope you don’t mind my colorful text. I wanted to change it up a bit this time from the standard black and white. 🙂 I hope you all have an amazing holiday weekend!!
2018 was a BIG year of changes for not only myself but for my entire family. This was the year that I went from being a full time working store owner to a stay at home Mom and oh my goodness….. it’s been an interesting transition.
On December 1st, 2017 we closed our beloved store in Minnesota and on January 1st, we started our new season of life in Memphis. To keep you from having to read a novel, I’m going to skip the details about Kids Carousel, BUT I will absolutely write about it in another post. Anyways, I wasn’t sure how I would transition to this new role I now had. At first, all was fine. We had an entire garage full of boxes that needed to be unpacked and find their new place, furniture needed to be put together, we got the kids enrolled in school, and put both in karate. Being such a big transition for them, we wanted to get them in a sport right away to get them involved in something and also make new friends.
Here is Colton “gated up” in store racks as we were assembling everything and getting the store ready to open.
After a few months had passed, I started feeling unsure of my new role. Don’t get me wrong, I love having time with my kids. With that said, I do believe there are people who are more suitable to stay home with their kids than others. I have come to the conclusion that I fit somewhere in the middle of those two groups. You see, for the last 7.5 years of owning Kids Carousel, my kids came to work with me most days. If they weren’t with me, they were with my husband or other family members. I got the best of both worlds. I got to work and be around my kids. If I wasn’t around them, I knew they were with people who I fully trusted, loved them as much as I did, AND they were free! Haha! Anyways, while I wasn’t sure if being a stay at home mom was good fit for me, I did not care for the idea of putting them in daycare either.
The girls hanging out at Kids Carousel.
As I toiled with what I should do, I did find a life group at my local church called MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). I was a little nervous about showing up to this group in the middle of their semester, but I also knew I needed to make some friends to ease the loneliness. It took till the fall semester in 2018 for me to really find my place and I’m so happy I kept making myself attend. Hearing other moms share their highs and lows and knowing that you’re not alone in the struggle of maintaining your sanity most days, was reassuring.
I have still struggled with the dilemma of, do I find a job or don’t I. Honestly, if I found the right job that had set hours and brought in enough income to pay for daycare and a surplus, I would probably take it. I have not found that job yet. I have years and years of experience with working in children’s retail, floor displays, management, and customer service. I also do not have a college degree. THAT my friends is what has become a big struggle in finding a good job. I am very, VERY good at retail. I love interacting with customers. I love helping them pick out coordinating outfits for family photos, giving them all the pros and cons on various baby swings so they go home with one they love and will best suite their needs, and getting to know them and their children. Retail hours will not work in our life right now. Between my husband’s schedule, the kid’s sports schedule, and retail’s crazy holiday hours. It isn’t a good fit right now.
Our first Easter in Memphis
So, here I am. I am still at home with my kiddos. Trying not to lose my sanity and yet soaking up all the moments I can because I know many would loved the opportunity to be home with their littles. I will say, my sanity has gotten much better since school started back up. Haha! Kidding… but not really. I still keep an eye on the job market and when the time is right, I’ll find something. Just know that if you’re struggling being home or being a working mom, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and both positions have plus’s and minus’s. No matter which position you are in, find other moms to do life with. My friends from Minnesota and the new friendships I’m making here, definitely make life easier. We were not made to do life alone.
Hello!! Welcome to Just An Average Mom Blog! In this first post, I’ll tell you a little about myself and what you can expect to see and read from this site and social media. So… here we go!
My name is Caitlin and I have been married to my husband, Joey, for 14 years in September! We got married VERY young so it is crazy to write down 14! For whatever reason, we don’t take selfies together and it always requires some scrolling to find the most current picture of us. In this case, I had to scroll back to 2016 which is when we had our last professional picture taken of our whole family. We have since then had pictures taken of our kids but have not pulled off family pictures.
Speaking of our kids… we have 3 beautiful blessings in our family. Colton is 10, Rhyen is 7, and Jordan recently turned 3. My sister just snapped this picture of me with my munchkins not that long ago.
This picture accurately portrays how taking a picture in this season of life is for me. I have Colton who is becoming a preteen boy and clearly doesn’t want to snuggle in close to his Mom. You can see my arm is reaching out trying to pull him close but he wasn’t having it. Rhyen, (our middle child) is not at the stage of her brother and will still snuggle in. Yay! It was a toasty day in Memphis so she was trying her best to cooperate and smile but was more than ready to get into some AC. Then there’s Jordan… who is a hard core threenager right now. She of course has her sweet, cute, playful moments. In this exact moment, she was not at all interested in sitting still and smiling. She was determined to run around and pick up all the pink flower petals that were lying all over the ground. So… there you have it. My brief into about me. I’ll definitely be digging in further in future posts. Trying to keep this first post short and sweet.
There are many things you’ll be seeing in this blog. I’ll be posting about motherhood, life going from a full time business owner to a stay at home mom, any great sales I find that involve anything kid related and recipes (new and old) that my kids love. I hope you’ll find this blog entertaining, relatable, helpful, and uplifting. I’m not sure what else to write about at this point so… I’m going to leave it at that. Jordan is sleeping and the kids are in school so I’m going to grab a nutty buddy bar that I have hidden in the pantry and enjoy that with my cup a coffee before my day of tasks begin. Have a wonderful day!
