Giving Thanks - Day 7

Today I'm thankful for the scent of baking pumpkin loaf filling my house. And thankful I bought the big can of pumpkin puree so I could make a double batch! I look forward to delivering some mini loaves to friends and still having some left over for the freezer.

Giving Thanks: Day 6

Thankful for ACD...not to be confused with OCD. ACD = Annual Craft Day and is one of my favorite days of the year. Better than my birthday, almost as good as Christmas. Seriously. ACD is a group of crafty friends coming together, each bringing a craft, and each walking away at the end of the day with a number of completed projects. There's food and fun and laughter but the day is about the love of crafting. I planned to take pictures, unfortunately my camera never left my purse. Distracted by the crafting I guess....and the suh-weet book wreath I saw the minute I walked through the door. Have I mentioned how much I love this day?

Giving Thanks: Day 5

Today I'm thankful for a husband that is always willing to help me when I need it. I had a great idea for a craft project and but didn't have the strength or maybe the skill with power tools needed to make it a reality. He helped me without question and despite being tired after a long day at work. Love that man.

Giving Thanks: Day 4

Today I'm thankful for TV...sad but true. The Mister and I watch a couple shows on Thursday night that we really enjoy. They pull us out of our lives and allow us a couple hours of mindless enjoyment. To piggy back on that, I'm also thankful for DVR. Often the shows we enjoy are not kid friendly yet are shown during the munchkins waking hours or bedtime routine. DVR is the best of both worlds...mindless enjoyment, when we want it, without commercials. Full of win!

In other news...

While at the grocery store today, I came across dark chocolate covered pretzels with York Peppermint Patty in the center. Two words. Diets. Suck.

Giving Thanks - Day 3

Today I'm thankful for the cute pink rain boots I bought on clearance last summer. They've kept my feet warm and dry on a cold and rainy day. Plus they're bright and fun on a dreary day.

An Anniversary

Yesterday was my mom and stepdad's 25th wedding anniversary. They celebrated it by flying to the other side of the world. Literally the other side of the globe, people. It's safe to say, this is not a trip I would have done well with. I'm more of a beach, umbrella drink, take in the sites and eat yummy local delights kind of girl. I must have been adopted. Anyway, the Rents and Hot Brother will be camping their way through rural villages on a continent far far away for a bit. While it's not my thing, I'm so impressed by their desire to know the world and learn about it by visiting the good, the bad and the ugly. So without further ado...Happy Anniversary to M&G! May their travels be plentiful, their packs be light, their tummies unaffected, their shoes unstolen, their pictures beautiful and thought provoking, their stories interesting, their soundtracks evolving and their love enduring.

LYBMTYK

Giving Thanks: Day 2

Today I'm thankful for Democracy and the chance for our voices to be heard.

Tuesday Twelve

1. Basketball starts for Ryan this week. Much less time intensive than baseball and a sport he really enjoys. I hope his coach is good and Ryan enjoys the season since this will be his first time playing organized basketball. I'm not particularly excited about his teams practice time....6 pm, Friday night, across town. Ahh, the joys of parenting.

2. I'm amazed at how much I can check off my list when I'm not toting kids with me. In preparation for our annual craft day I went to Target, Dollar Tree, Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart and Hobby Lobby, along with lunch at Panera, Grocery shopping and unloading today. All within the 5 hours the younger two were at MDO. I felt so accomplished.

3. Speaking of craft day, this week I'll be prepping wine bottles and wood for two different crafts. Can't wait to see how they turn out.

4. The Mister and I actually had a dress up, adults only Halloween party to attend this year. I knew people attending the party would be bringing their A game for costumes so I spent some time trying to figure out what we would be and then shopping for the pieces to pull it together. We ended up going as Peace and Quiet. The Mister is a very believable Hippie. Me as a mime, not so much. I started talking about 3 minutes after walking in the door.

5. The kids had a great time TOTing. Eli wore a costume that Ryan wore when he was just over a year old. <3

In his Tigger costume and eating candy before we even made it to the end of our street.

Makenna who was running and stopped on dime to pose for this picture.

Ryan with our neighbor Mitchell. We ran into them while we were out and spent the rest of the night walking and chatting.

Enough with the pictures, Mom! Can we go now?!

6. I love my first Halloween Mantel in our new house. It's pretty sparce but the cotton was picked at a neighboring farm. Wish I had video of the Mister pulling it for me. I turned the pumpkins around today since Halloween is over.

7. I love the look of all white pumpkins. They're all over the place again this year. Trying to decide if I want to paint mine or keep them orange. For now I'm leaning towards orange, all the fall colors may not match my decor but I love the feelings they inspire.

8. This is the first year I've really had to rake leaves, our house is surrounded by tons of trees. So pretty in the spring and summer but a mess during the fall. We need to hire someone to come clean out the gutters because we can't get on top of the roof with our extension ladder. Annoying, but the kids have had so much fun playing in the big piles and I've enjoyed raking them up. I'm weird.

9. I pile. Papers, clothes, kids things. I put things in piles. Horrible trait but I can't seem to break it. Was just going through one of my said piles and realized the tags expired on my car. In September. Oopsie.

10. I started singing Christmas Carols yesterday. I know, The Mister wanted to pull out the duct tape too.

11. I heard a statistic today. For every piece of Halloween candy that your child eats, you'll eat two. Fabulous.

12. I'm in lust. I look from afar and wonder what it would feel like to act on that lust. I dream about the object of my lust. I've spoken openly with The Mister about my lust. I may need to join a twelve step program. I'm in lust.....with. a. sofa.

Giving Thanks: Day 1

Today I'm so thankful for a fantastic Mother's Day Out program where my kids feel safe, happy and loved. We couldn't have asked for better teachers or a better program. Both kids are blossoming socially and learning new things every time they go to school. All that, and it's only about 5 minutes from the house. Good stuff.

Sadness

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball. To make matters worse, no medical insurance due to the economy and job loss. If you're the praying type, Margie could sure use a few prayers right now and so could her husband and son.

Thank you friends and family.

15 Minutes

A couple girlfriends and I were in the online section of our local newpaper a few weeks ago. That plus mine and Ryan's TV interview at a local event might just be my 15 minutes of fame.

http://boroparty.dnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=D4&Dato=20100830&Kategori=BOROPARTY08&Lopenr=8300809&Ref=PH

For some reason the link takes you to the beginning of the photo gallery. We're picture 31.

Budding Artist

Makenna is getting so big! She loves to color and paint and recently she's begun drawing her own masterpieces. She started with faces about a week ago and then added body parts this week. This is her first self portrait. A friend said she's reaching for the stars.

Another Bento

I'm having so much fun with the kids lunches this year. Not only is it instant gratification and fun to create something cute, I'm getting lots of external motivation from kids and teachers alike! Eli's teacher told me today that she can't wait for lunch time to open his box and see what cute lunch I've packed that day. Ryan's picked lunch from home over school lunch all but a couple times this year and Makenna oohs and ahhhs over her lunch every time I pack one for her. Fun, a quick creative outlet for me, helps the kids eat healthier, probably cheaper and definitely less wasteful. It's a win/win for all involved, yay!

By the way, the lunch above has a turkey and cheese butterfly sandwich on whole grain bread, ants on a log, grapes and blueberries, homemade zucchini lemon mini muffin and on the right a flower composed of a pickle stem, green pepper leaves and silicone flower cup filled with cheddar bunnies. I needed something to keep the wet fruit away from dry sandwich and muffin so a piece of parchment paper did the trick.

Bentos

Bento Boxes are one of my newer joys in life. I bought some snack and lunch boxes last spring and we've been working towards waste free lunches and snacks ever since. The lunch boxes I bought, Ryan loves. They're a little big and cumbersome for the other two so I've been trying out different containers for their lunches. One that I like is this Sistema box. Just right for a little snack which is what we needed today.
Both kids got "sushi rolls", a babybel cheese, grapes and carrots. The fruit and veggies are separated from the sushi rolls by a little silicone cup and layered with the babybel cheese. The sushi rolls are just a piece of wheat bread, rolled flat and smeared with blackberry jam, then rolled like sushi. Makenna loved them! I have to admit, I think they're pretty cute too. If your snack looked like that, wouldn't you want to eat it?

Making a House a Home

Our new house is so pretty. Big open rooms, lots of space to play and cook and dance and whatever else our hearts desire. The decor doesn't do it justice. We moved in just over four months ago and basically brought the stuff from our old house to our new house, with a few additions. None of the rooms have a plan or a color scheme yet. I can't wait to start putting together idea boards for each room in the house. Decorating, painting, building, repurposing and making our new house into our HOME is how I plan to spend the next nine months. I have 10 hours a week when all my kids are in school. I'm going to be selfish with that time and use it to do something I love. If I can grow a baby in nine months, certainly I can grow a home!

5 years

Don't know when it started, but at some point over the last few years I fell into the trap of looking at the world through a pessimists eyes. I'd get frustrated because I was just a stay at home mom, when I should have been thinking about how wonderful it was that I got to be home with my kids. I'd beat myself up for quitting school and being no closer to living my dream. Then I'd remember I'm already living my dream. Sure, some freelance design work would be awesome but that would be the icing on the cake not the whole cake. I'm done with that way of thinking. The days of beating myself up, not recognizing my achievements and rewards, never thinking I'm doing enough and always trying to make everyone else happy are over. I'm done listening to the little comments from well intended people asking when I'm going to go back to work and what exactly I'm going to do.

I am so blessed. I have a great husband who I've spent the last 17 years with. We've been sooo sooo blessed with our three beautiful kids. We have great extended family and great friends near and far. My life is so awesome, I'm doing it a disservice by looking at it through pessimism and letting self doubts get me down.

Approximately 8 years ago, the Mister and I sat down and wrote up a 5 year plan. It's one of the best things we've done. It's time for me, and us, to do that again. I want the next 5 years to be incredibly full of things and people that I love. Instead of sitting by and watching as years slip by it's time to grab ahold of time and make it work for me!

Things that are important to me right now:

*nurturing relationships with those I love...husband, kids, family and friends

*creating an environment in my home that makes my family want to be home and fits their personalities

*finding a church we can call home and being more than just Sunday attenders

*finding out who I am, other than mommy and wife

*finding an enjoyment in exercise and incorporating it into all our lives on a daily basis

*food! I'm discovering joy in bento boxing the kids lunches and am starting to cook more. Cooking always takes a dive after having a baby, we're finally getting to a place where it's a bit more feasible.

God, Family (including my friends who are chosen family) and Home...that about sums up what's important to me now and I don't see those priorities changing over the next five years.

With that in mind it's time to put pen to paper and write my plan. Can't wait to get started!

I'm mobile! Have I mentioned how much I love my iPhone?!

Drowning

Warning, whining and feeling sorry for myself so you might want to skip this one.

Ever feel like there's just too much to do...be...accomplish...etc. I feel that way so much lately. I thought moving and having more space would help. While I appreciate more space and I know the kids to do, it's also a lot of work right now. We still have a couple boxes in the house and the garage is full. The blank walls glare at me, the lack of furniture is frustrating and the flat paint and little handsprints...don't even get me started. I have so many ideas in my head of things I want to do and can't get to any of them, let alone other daily tasks. I have a to do list a mile long and things are constantly falling through the cracks. We worked so hard to have kids, wanted them so much, they are the best things in my life, and hands down, the hardest. I can barely find a moment in the day where no one is fighting, crying, asking me for a snack, a drink, some toy they've seen an ad for, to play with friends, go out for a treat, etc. I find myself losing my patience and yelling because I'm just so tired of the crying and fighting. I want to hole up in my bedroom, lock the door and just let them battle it out. A couple months ago I started the process of trying to work from home on a very small scale. I'm really not sure how I thought I could make that happen, especially now that it's summer and all kids are home every day. I feel like I'm failing them and myself. We've been home for the past few days because we've all been sick. Too many days all together in the house = bored and restless kids and a frustrated mommy. These are the times when I really question my decision not to work. I would give anything right now to be able to drop them all at daycare and go deal with adults. I feel like I'm drowning and becoming a shadow of the person I was meant to be. More invisible as each day passes. I'm sure I'll be better tomorrow, but this mommy thing with three kids at two very different stages is hard. I know 10 years from now I'll look back and miss these days. Right now though, in the heat of crying and fighting, I'm just trying not to cry myself.

Budding Decorator?

My sweet, beautiful, wonderful daughter decided to decorate her brothers room today... With elmers glue and broken goldfish sprinkled over his entire floor and rug. How long should she be in timeout? I'm leaning towards a solid week.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Our little Leprechaun says Happy St. Patrick's Day! One of my favorite holidays of the year, but come on, who really needs a reason to wear green? We started yesterday in green because it was "green day" at Makenna's school. Somehow dressing her in green trickled down to Eli, it's a good thing they have more green to wear today!

On to other topics, it's been a BUSY month! Our house went on the market the first week in March, and we got an offer a couple days ago. After a counteroffer, and another...we have a signed contract and will close on our house mid April! We sold our house in TWELVE days, people! We've felt a space crunch since having Eli and the other two getting bigger and now it looks like we'll be leaving for bigger (not neccessarily greener, since we love this house) pastures. On that note, we put in an offer on a foreclosure yesterday. We're anxiously awaiting news of that, and if accepted we'll anxiously await the inspection. The house hasn't been lived in for a few months, so I just want to be sure everything is in good condition. The house is almost twice as big as our current place with all the rooms we wanted, ie four bedrooms, bonus, office, open living area. It's very vanilla and will need LOTS of color, but I think we're up for the task. We looked at 13 houses and countless others online and this was the only one we really liked, so I'm really hoping the offer is accepted and all goes well. What a ride this has been! It's encouraged me to pursue staging as a career choice, and pulled me out of my comfort zone as I talked with loan managers and interviewed agents. I was determined to have a good experience selling and buying and so far it's been great! Much different than our first house in Castle Rock.

In other news, I'm really considering becoming a consultant for Beauticontrol. It's a skincare/makeup/bath and body company that does in home spa parties. I've been using their skin care products for almost two months and have really seen a difference in my skin. As someone who didn't grow up using skin care products, this is a little out of the box for me, but I think it would be a fun way to get out of the house a bit, make a few bucks and get some sales experience and community connections. My ultimate goal is a staging business and I think this could be a stepping stone to that, along with having a lasting effect on my skin! Sounds like a win/win situation.

Finally, Eli took his first steps just a couple days ago! Wayne was videoing him riding the little horse that Grandma and Grandpa gave Makenna for her first birthday. Anyway, he slid off the back and just walked across the room! We couldn't believe how steady he was, and that we got it on camera! Just another reason I love the iPhone.

Kids are waking up so it's time for another busy day. Hope you all enjoy your St. Patty's day, I think we'll make some Irish Soda Bread this morning to celebrate. Wonder if we'll get any visitors this year? If you recall a little leprechaun came to visit last year and left green footprints all over my kitchen...