the difference between boys and girls

The inherent difference between boys and girls has never been more evident than at my house last weekend.  Harper D was on her third wardrobe change of the day and was now wearing her Ariel jammies when she insisted that she wanted her hair curled with mommy's curling iron.  When I was done with her hair I had to curl mine too so that we matched.  Not even 30 minutes later Cayden came out of the bathroom after having just gone but before flushing the toilet and told me he needed my help (you can probably guess what I was thinking at this point).  He the asked me to lift the lid off the toilet tank because he wanted to see what would happen when he flushed the toilet.  After he watched the water I had to explain the way the toilet works. 

There you have it.  The best possible example of the difference between boys and girls.  Harper insisted that I curl her hair and mine while Cayden needed to know how the toilet works.

what about our kisses

It may seem like I have completely abandoned my blog, but I promise I have not.  Life is just not slowing down at all and finding the time to write has proven more difficult than I expected when I started this.  Never-the-less, I have a story that I just had to write down so that I don't forget this incredibly special moment with my biggest kid.

Since Cayden started preschool nearly 2 years ago we have had a pretty standard schedule.  I take my lunch break at work, pick him up at school and take him to daycare for the rest of the afternoon.  I really enjoy getting to do this, even though it seems rushed and can interrupt my work day, because I get 20 minute of alone time with Cayden.  I get to be the first one to see him after school, I get to be the one to see him excitedly run down the sidewalk and I get to be the first one to hear about his morning and all the fun things they did.  When we get to daycare I take him inside, hang up his coat and make sure he washes his hands before we say our good-byes and he heads upstairs for lunch.  We always say "I love you" before I leave and I usually get a fun good-bye from him where he tells me to "be fun at work" or "have a good day Mommy" which are always awesome to hear.  We also always give hugs and kisses before he runs up the stairs.  One day about a week ago, he was washing his hands and I needed to get back to work so we said "good-bye" and "I love you" but as I was walking out the door Cayden yelled "Mommy, wait!"  I turned around and went back in the house and he looked at me (his hands still in the sink) and he said "Mommy, what about our kisses?"  I had started to leave without giving him a kiss.  It was one of the cutest and sweetest moments I can remember having with him.  He gave me the biggest, tightest hug and the best kiss good-bye I think I will ever get.  It still makes me smile thinking about this 2 minute interaction with my son that I will cherish and keep in mind when he is a teenager and doesn't want to be seen in public with me, let alone show affection in public.

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!!!