the most productive weekend EVER!

I may have started decorating for Christmas in early November (I had a bad few days and needed some twinkle lights to lift my mood...no judgement) but there have been many a holiday project left unfinished week after week.  Cookies were without frosting, lighted village was without it's usual fluffy, fake snow, Christmas cards hadn't even entered into my train of thought yet but all that changed this past weekend.  I finished my decorating, adding all the fluffy fake snow I wanted to my animated carolers and lighted village.  I not only finished designing our Christmas cards but got them ordered, picked up, stuffed and addressed.  I frosted cookies (OK, so not all of them but I am making some serious progress) and finished the rest of the items on my holiday baking list.  I even got presents wrapped without the kids seeing what any of them were.  More impressive than my crazy productivity that seems to be spilling into my week nights this week...the fact that all of Sunday while the hubby was at work both kids played nicely (alone and together) didn't fight and left me almost completely alone to get these things crossed off of my "To Do" list.  It was a Christmas miracle.  One that they have more than made up for the last three days, but it still happened and I have the frosted Christmas cookies to prove it! 

so...yeah...it's november

That's about all I can really say today.  It's November, like nearly the middle of November.  The last few months have flown by as crazy and busy as the rest of this year.  It honestly feels like time decided to start moving at twice it's normal speed over the course of this year.  Of course it has to happen when my babies are still young and all I want is for time to slow down.  Maybe that's why it seems to be moving so much faster.  In July, after the kids and I had gotten back from our fun filled vacation in North Carolina, I thought it would be really fun to put together a little photo album of our trip.  As I was going through pics from our trip I started looking at pictures of all the other things we had already done this summer and decided to expand my little vacation album to include the whole summer.  That idea has once again morphed into me creating an album for the entire year.  You don't really realize how many pictures you take, especially on your trusty iPhone (side note...my photo stream will only hold 1,000 pics so old ones are going bye-bye when new ones are taken) until you start going through them to print.  I think the total number of prints heading their way to my mailbox, thanks to my new best friend Shutterfly and their amazing iPad app, has reached about 400.  Even if I put these pictures into the photo album and it sits on a shelf never being looked at , I know that I can rest easy with the comforting thought that this crazy year has been documented in a way that will let me remember all the things we did when my kids are grown and gone.  

To quickly recap, the last 3+ months have been filled with preschool starting (and meltdowns from Miss Davis because she wants desperately to stay at school with Monkey), a swing set for our yard, trip to the pumpkin patch, traveling for work and for fun, Disney Live shows, visiting family and family visiting us, a 5 year old's birthday (yes, he's really 5 already), Halloween craziness and of course Starbucks in their make-my-day red, holiday cup.

                  

              

 

  

             

  

divide and conquer

After 8 days with the kids and I pretty much on top of each other (well them crawling all over me day and night) followed by a week with Daddy home every night and through the weekend I have come to the conclusion that there is such a thing as too much togetherness!  We are a family of four people who need our alone time!  Not only that, but our kids need time without each other.  

The last few weeks have been insane with Cayden and Harper's fighting.  Fighting in our house involves hitting, pushing, yelling, spitting, crying and a LOT of tattling.  I knew that this day would come (obviously, I have brothers and even though we love each other now there was a time when we couldn't be within 100 yards of each other without something going down) I was just honestly hoping it would hold off a little bit longer.  In a last ditch effort one recent Saturday to try and reduce the fighting, Mommy decided that we were going to give the kids some much needed one-on-one time.  

Harper and I went on a crafting supply shopping trip that took us to Hobby Lobby (seriously got excited with all the sparkling, twinkling Christmas stuff that was being put up while we were there), two fabric stores and Menards and involved a quick stop for lunch.  It was a very successful trip though and it was obvious that my baby girl loved her Mommy time as much as I loved being alone with her.

Daddy and Cayden did some yard work and then headed to Walmart.  I was expecting them to come back with some sort of superhero action figure or a new movie.  Instead, Bob came home with them.  Bob is Cayden's new roommate and is a pretty, blue beta fish with a Spongebob pineapple house in his fish bowl.  Yes, that's right...J gave in and bought Cayden a fish. 

As a result of our separate trips with the kids, we had a very nice evening with them playing alone in their rooms and then playing together with minimal fighting.  Lesson learned!




My date for the day!

Cayden and his new roommate Bob.

unfinished

The theme that has seemed to dominate life in the month of July is unfinished.  It feels, at least to me, like everything is unfinished.  From the pile of clean, folded laundry sitting in the basket in my room but not put away, the belated birthday craft project for my friend's son, the "To Do" list at work that is full of half finished projects and papers and reports and the two blog posts that were started but are still sitting as drafts I am not following through with anything lately.  A garage sale is planned for September so that will at least force some major cleaning out of junk that hasn't been touched in years, toys that are no longer played with or house items that no longer fit with my decorating themes.  Of course that means that this whole unfinished business needs to pass and the time for completing projects that are started needs to commence.  I'm not going to lie though, there will probably be a lot of coffee drinking in the morning, afternoon trips to Starbucks, Target and Hobby Lobby and wine drinking in the evening to get through all of my "To Do" lists but I am determined to get things crossed off this month.  August will be the month of finishing everything that was left unfinished in July.

Fingers crossed!!!

summer has finally arrived

After what felt like the longest winter ever followed by the spring from hell, summer has finally made an appearance in ND.  We have had a few weeks of warm weather, little wind (for ND anyway) and lots of sunshine.  I don't care how many days this summer that I sweat just walking out the door of an air conditioned building or how many times my legs stick together while in the car, I am not going to complain because before we know it the ground will be covered in snow and we will be talking about wind-chill factor. 

Along with summer weather finally moving in comes long afternoons at the zoo, lots of time playing outside, dinner on the deck, picnics, parades and iced coffee from Starbucks.  To say that the kids and I have been busy would be a gross understatement.  Cayden has even decided that watering the flowers and washing the car are fun activities, not chores, which I am attributing 100% to the fact that both involve using the hose.  Happy Summer!!!

 

happy 2nd birthday miss davis

Seriously late on this particular post but Miss Davis is 2!  Everyone tells you time flies when you have kids and I swear it goes by way faster the second time around.  It really seems like just yesterday I was waddling into Altru's birthing center where just 9 1/2 hours later I would meet my incredible baby girl.  She was always moving around while I was pregnant, she was in a hurry to get on out and she pretty much hasn't stopped moving since.  I mean that literally.  If you have been to our house any time in the last year and a half since she started crawling and then walking you have witnessed the endless laps her little legs make up and down the hallway from the moment she wakes up until we force her to go to bed. 

She has recently developed quite the little attitude as well.   Standing with her hands on her hips she will yell "I don't wanna!" or "How 'bout, No!" when asked to do something she apparently doesn't feel like doing.  Last week she was threatening me with the wrath of Great-Grandpa.  Not quite sure what she thought he would do or say but when she was told it was bed time and that she needed to come back in the house, little Miss Attitude spouted off a string of words (very loudly I might add) and the only two I was able to catch were "Great-Grandpa" and "tomorrow."  If this is a glimpse at things to come, she and I will have a very challenging relationship. 

All the sweet moments of her asking for hugs and kisses, placing her chubby little hands on my cheeks to pull my face closer, running her fingers through my hair as she falls asleep or always making sure to tell her big brother "good morning" more than make up for her moments of attitude and sassy behavior.  So Happy 2nd Birthday baby girl!!! I don't think it's possible for anyone to love their daughter more than I love you!

 

 

mama turned 30

Yes, it's true and I am going to openly admit it.  I am 30!  Not gonna lie though...I haven't been that OK with this number as it crept closer and closer.  But now that the day has come and gone and did I survived, I am starting to feel better about it.  I am sure that when I am in my 40s I will look back and think "what the hell were you so worried about" but for now, I am struggling and I'm not really sure why.  30 doesn't feel much different from 29 but it just sounds so much older.  Maybe I am struggling because my 20s were so amazing?  They really were!  I had the best time in college after 20, I graduated from college, got my Master's degree, got married, had two of the most beautiful babies on the planet and so much more.  All that amazingness (not sure if that's really a word but oh well) is a lot of pressure to put on this new decade.  I have to say though, it definitely started out amazing!

In order to have my mental break-down in peace, I took the Friday of my actual birthday off from work.  Who wants to work on their birthday anyway?  At midnight, yes I was still up, I started getting some of the nicest texts and FB messages from friends and family.  I did send the kids to daycare (insert mommy guilt here for not being at work but not keeping the kids home with me) so that I could have the whole day to do whatever I wanted.  Mom took me shopping and spoiled me rotten, followed by sushi (yummy!) for lunch and a little more shopping.  She made sure to tell everyone we talked to that it was my 30th birthday too (thanks Mom, did you realize that made us both sound old?)Grandma and Grandpa came over to have crab legs for dinner (yummy!) that night and we had a great day.  The day after my birthday, I got the biggest surprise ever.  Jacob threw me a surprise party.  I was completely clueless and was incredibly surprised.  I also have to admit that I asked the dumbest question ever when we got to our house and I was surprised.  I turned to J and asked him if the friends we had just been out with were in on it too.  Really?  Like it was just a big coincidence they asked us to go out on the very same night he planned a surprise party?  Apparently turning 30 didn't make me any smarter.  I also got the sweetest present from my far-away friends who couldn't make it.  A bag full of 30 things that made them think of me or that they thought I would like.  Each item had a note referring to a memory or inside joke and every single note made me laugh or cry or both. 

So, I may not be in my 20s any more and I may not totally be OK with it yet but my 30s have definitely started off pretty great and it doesn't look like that will be changing or slowing down any time soon! 

just stay put

One thing that I discovered as a parent is that kids really do thrive on routine.  The more you can get them on to a fairly set schedule, the better your days will be for everyone.  It is not always possible though and things like travel can disrupt a routine fairly quickly.  My kids have always been really good at adapting to new routines, new situations, etc. when we are traveling or start with new activities.  The last few weeks have been really busy between Great Grandma and Grandpa coming back from their winter in Arizona (so excited to have them in town BTW), Cayden finishing preschool and spring finally arriving in Bismarck and allowing for lots of time to play outside.

I didn't really realize just how busy we have been or how much running we had been doing, especially on the weekends, until Cayden woke up on Saturday.  He came out to the living room, half asleep and rubbing his eyes and asked me "Mommy, are we just going to stay home today?"  That made up my mind about running errands or doing anything that would require us to put real clothes on or even brush our teeth.  So, I hugged him and said "Yes dude, we are just going to stay home today."  He perked up, smiled and ran laughing into his room where he spent most of the day playing in his boxers.  Harper must have also been just as happy to stay home because she refused to wear any more clothes than her brother.  It was a good day!

What accessory goes with a pull-up and flip phone? Mommy's running shoes, of course!

Makes my heart melt :-)

Watching the rain coming down the drain pipe.  "Mommy it looks like a waterfall!"

Watching rain must be as captivating as watching it snow!

too funny not to share

With Mother's Day right around the corner (because it's seriously May already), I just had to share this with all of you mom's out there (or the two who might actually be reading this)!!!

I got one of my regular, daily emails from Parenting Magazine with a subject line that said "19 Hilarious Mother's Day Cards."  If I am being perfectly honest, it's 3pm on Friday afternoon and I am looking for any possible way to procrastinate starting a new project at work when there are only 2 hours left of the work week, so I decided this would be a good way to work towards that ambitious goal.  These cards are really funny, very true and made me extremely thankful that greeting cards don't actually tell the truth.  I particularly like the ones from the "tween."  Something to look forward to.  

ENJOY!

19 Hilarious Mother's Day Cards 

what happened to april?

We are not three days into the month of May and I am still baffled as to where the month of April went.  I only have a handful of pictures from April and they are all from the circus and New Orleans.  I guess that's what we did.

For the second year in a row, Harper, Cayden and I went to the circus with friends.  To say that we all LOVE the circus would be a huge understatement.  All three of us wait all year long for this weekend and can barely sleep the night before.  Although we were disappointed that there was no elephant to see, we had a blast (which is obvious from Harper's face...remember she slept through the whole thing last year)!

 

 

Next, it was time for Mommy and Daddy to head to New Orleans.  Brace yourself for this shocking piece of information...ready?...this was the first solo trip that we had taken since our trip to Jamaica 5 years ago and I was pregnant with Cayden at the time.  Now, that you have wiped that shocked and/or horrified look off your face I can tell you that New Orleans is an amazing city.  It is the BEST place for people watching and you can spend hours just walking around.  We had some of the most amazing food and you have to love a city where every other store/business down almost every street has a whole wall of frozen drink machines and every drink you buy from any bar or restaurant comes in a giant to-go cup!  Bonus - we also missed the massive April blizzard that hit Bismarck :-)

 

BEST OYSTERS EVER!!!

 



 

The rest of April saw 70+ degree weather while we still had snow on the ground, much better days/nights/weekends with Miss Davis and a new found obsession with watching morning cartoons in Mommy's bed. 

 

Her love of accessories has now been extended to include her babies and stuffed animals.  Why wouldn't her elephant need both a hat and a headband?