Goodbye Tax Season

Another almighty tax season is behind us. It truly is almighty because it takes away from everything else in life. It seems like each year i put asleep all other aspects of my life and hibernate for 3 months.
This tax season was different for a few reasons. It was the first year I had a child. So now i was missing not just Chris but Emma as well. I do have to say that even though it was hard, i was blessed with the chance to work part time at home so i do not have to spend the whole day in the office but can go home and play with Emma and then work from home at night when she is sleeping. Sometimes, at those very tiring moments, I felt like that was a blessing and a curse at the same time because I was always "working". I don't understand people who are always "online", who live to use their Blackberries...It is tiring to always be available. It took me a few weeks to set my own boundaries and get in the rhythm. I told my big boss that working from home is definitely a blessing especially when you are not already working 50 hours in the office. However I am forever grateful to them for allowing me to do this.

Another difference was that this year i worked on the weekend as well. I have never done that before. I would always do all of my hours during the week, but working shorter hours during the week, weekends were the times when i would catch up with work i did not do during the week. This is a time when working from home was a GREAT blessing because i could spend a nice morning at home with Chris and Emma and then work when Emma naps during the day. That allowed me plenty of time to do the work but also to spend good time with my family and relaxing. Which is something i always desperately needed by the time weekend would come around.

Usually by the beginning of the last week before the 15th deadline, I would not have that much work that i have not even touched on. I would mainly be waiting for client to get me the last minute info, but never was i in a situation where I did not even start on a return. This year, I think beginning of last week I had about 13 returns that I did not even looked at. I have to say that I was amazed at the end that we did it all. It made for a few stressfull days for the managers in the firm as they had to review through my work, but they did it and we got the returns out. Plus May 19th extension helped a little-haha.

So yes. These are some of the differences. But certain things remained the same. JRS is still probably the nicest place to work at during this time.

Chris was again the BEST! He cooked, cleaned, made my lunches, cleaned the bottles, took care of me, took care of Emma and did not complain much. I could never have done this again without his support and care. I realize each year how blessed I am by this man and his love for me. I just pray that I can love him back the same way (i guess my time is coming with his studying for the bar this summer).

Thanks to all of you friends for pursuing me during this time of unavailability and patiently waiting for me to come alive again. The last week, since tax season ended was a blast to see you all and catch up.

Emma loves to stand

Emma love to stand. Nothing is safe, especially on the coffee table. She will grab anything that is on the coffee table and throw it on the floor or just stand and chew on it. It's especially dangerous with drink.



She also loves to stand in her crib. She will stand, look at the door, and make all sorts of noise, babbling, screeching, yelling...

Emma Crawling

Here is a video of Emma crawling. She started crawling about three weeks ago. Now that she is on the move we have to keep a close eye on her. She likes to get into everything, pick things up and put them in her mouth. It's a lot of fun to watch her play. She likes it the best when she is playing by herself but we are in the same room. She's happy to crawl around, find something interesting and play with it uninterrupted.

Emma Splashing

Emma love to take a bath and love to splash non-stop.

More faces of Emma

How cute!

Future heartbreaker

Look I can spit!

Why are you taking another picture of me?

Faces of Emma

Emma has started to make all sorts of different faces as she plays and does baby talk. Here are a few.

When she doesn't want to listen to Mommy and Daddy

A look of mischief

Squealing with excitement

Being silly

I Have Teeth!!!

Emma recently got her first two teeth on the bottom.