Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Boys.

While shopping at Target yesterday, Jack inevitably had to go potty because their 'dollar section' is strategically placed right next to the bathrooms

When we got into the stall, I realized that he had on two pairs of underwear.

I asked him why he was wearing two and he said, "Because this morning you said I *have* to put new ones on...so I did. I just chose to put them on over the pair I already had on." 
  
Boys. I swear. 






Friday, November 23, 2012

Fit Friday

JUST KIDDING!

It's the day after Thanksgiving and if you actually thought I was going to step on that scale today YOUZ CRAY-ZEE!

{I did manage to get a workout in on Thanksgiving morning though which, I have to admit, was a first for me...so at least there's that, right?}

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Be thankful.

It looked a lot like a Sunday morning around these parts today. On Sunday mornings we're all scrambling to get dressed, fed, grab our Bibles and head out the door to be to church on time. Usually we're running late, the kids are fighting and I'm yelling at everyone to "Just ignore them and do what *you're* supposed to be doing!" By the time we get to the car we're already running late, half of the kids are in tears, and our coffee is cold. Everyone is frustrated and it feels pretty convicting to be headed to church to praise the Lord who laid down his life in forgiveness for the very behavior we were just demonstrating.

Even though I really blew it this morning (it was a bit howdoIsayit...crazy around here) I'm ready to focus on what matters. I'm making my heart be obedient to what I know I need to do, and that's simply letting it all go. I'm choosing not to stress out about the dozen or so things I forgot to get at the store. I'm not worrying about the weather and the flooding that is taking place on our property as we speak. I'm not going to dwell on how exhausted I am because of a certain baby boy who has been awake more than asleep at all hours of the night lately.

I'm choosing joy today. I'm choosing peace. I'm choosing to thank my Lord and Savior for all the blessings He's so graciously lavished on me even though there is simply no way I could ever deserve even a portion of them. Even though when he was dying on the cross he knew that I would never be able to repay him for what he was doing, he chose to do it anyway because he loves me. When I think about it THAT way, I realize I have no reason not to be thankful.

Be thankful.



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Oh. Right.


I was on a run the other day (you know the day - it was the only nice one in the last few weeks) and this truck passed me. I didn't recognize the young (about my age I'd guess) guy driving which is a little odd since we live in a super tiny community and I was running on the road we live on, but whatevs.

So anyway, he passed and we cordially waved at each other. After a few minutes he starts driving back down the road that I was still running on the side of. I had a brief oh-crap-he's-slowing-down-and-rolling-down-his-window moment that was quickly replaced with is-he-going-to-try-to-talk-to-me panic thinking for a second that he actually might hit on me.

He stops his truck and I stop running as he finishes rolling down his window. I'm about ready to blurt out, "Um, I'm married." when he says, "I think you dropped your baby's hat back there on the bridge."

Oh. Right.

: : Humility is a beautiful thing. : :

Monday, November 19, 2012

Um. Awkward.

...that moment when you're doing the laundry and pull a condom out of your husband's jeans pocket and have a mental melt down/heart attack right then and there since you had your tubes tied about 6 months ago...

...eventually you gather your senses, look down at the package in your hand to realize that it's not a condom at all, but a Ramen Noodle spice packet that your husband picked up off the ground in the parking lot of his work.

In review: My husband is a good man - he is faithful to the vows he made and he picks up litter.


Sunday, November 18, 2012

genius

Our kids are normal. This means that they fail to clean out their backpacks after school, they forget to put their dirty laundry in a basket, when they put their folded clothes "away" they often merely shove most of them under their dressers, the books on their bookshelves are stacked horizontally and not vertically, usually their beds are not made, and equal portions of stray papers and broken toy parts in the toy boxes.


(This is *not* our home, but honestly, it's not too much of a stretch some days...) {Photo Credit}
: :  Someone please tell me this is indeed "normal."  : :

After I spend hours cleaning the whole upstairs with my children, organizing our spaces (granted it's limited space these days), I always end with a mini lecture on the importance of keeping our things clean and organized and how it shows respect blah blah blah.

So far my tactic hasn't worked well (shocking, I know).

Well tonight I could hear Jeff in the kids' rooms while I was nursing Fischer in our bedroom. He was in there for quite some time and when I was done with the baby (feeding/changing/putting to bed) I went to check on him.

I found that Jeff had cleaned (like really cleaned) their entire rooms; folded every piece of clothing and organized every.single.square.inch. of their spaces (it really looked nice!).

{Photo Credit}

 Before I could even yell at the kids to come and say, "What do you guys tell Daddy!?" Jeff pulls out his phone and starts taking pictures from every angle of the room (which, honestly, made me wonder WTHeck?), but I said nothing (see? I'm learning!).

After taking these pictures, he calls the kids up who immediately ooh and aahh over how great it looks and then he says to them, "I had a feeling you were going to appreciate your rooms looking all cleaned up like this...so I took some pictures of it for you. Tomorrow I'm going to print them off and hang them nicely on your wall so that every night before you go to bed you have a visual standard of what they need to look like. Mom and I expect you to take the time every.single.day. to bring them up to this standard before you crawl into bed so when we come in to do devotions and pray with you before you go to sleep you'll have a great space you can be proud of and we'll have nice clean rooms to come in to. You think you can do it?"

They said they could.

Genius.




Friday, November 16, 2012

this and that


Carter convinced me the other day that he went to school without underwear on (he was kidding - but I did not know this for quite some time).

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Jack is at his friend's house right now. Like a "hang out" time. He's not even 5 yet and he's already got a best friend. I love that.

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On Tuesday Jack turns 5, on Wednesday Natalie turns 10 (someone hold me), and Fischer turns 6 months on Thursday, so obviously I'm pulling out all the stops and heading to Pinterest to make the coolest decorations and food/cakes for a HUGE party and it's going to be so much fun!

Oh, wait, I just remembered... No I'm not. We're having a small family party at my in-law's house on Thanksgiving evening and we're sticking candles in pie (don't worry - they get to choose what kind of pie and Jeff's Mom is making them special for each kid). So, I'm not getting Mother-of-the-Year this year, but that should not come as a shock to any of you, amIright? Plus I'll probably go to the dollar store and get birthday decorations so it feels party-ish... (Don't judge me. I'm tired...or lazy something.)

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I'm less than five pounds away from being what I weighed when I graduated high school.  HOLLA!!! However, I feel that it should be noted that I was not exactly thin when I graduated. So there's that. But I'm still stoked because I've not been this weight since then, so I don't mean to brag, but...it's kind of a big deal.

That being said - I lost 2.2 this week (and .6 last week) for a grand total of 46 pounds.

(Still to lose: 14 lbs.)

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Welp, Holly, even though they were really great tips, I'm pretty sure that on my first post "back" I failed at following any of the helpful hints for blogging you gave. I'll try harder next time. Pinky-swear. ;)



Monday, November 5, 2012

Family, football, and FUN in the fall - my favorite!

As always we had a super busy weekend (emphasis on "super"). It was fun, but it was BUSY.

Saturday started bright and early with leaving the house before 8am to get the kids to the first game of their soccer tournament.

Carter is the goalie in the orange and Natalie is next to him (telling him what to do).

We spent the better part of Saturday at the games (the kids played 3 that day and after losing 2 of them, were out of the tournament and didn't need to go back on Sunday thankgoodness). After we finished up at the games we ran home to do feed all the animals and bathe the kids and then headed down to Jeff's parents' place where we had dinner and watched the football games (GO BEAVS!!!). ALL of Jeff's siblings were there with their families, so it was great having everyone together.

We got home late that night and got up early Sunday morning to head to Jeff's parents' church where they were holding a fundraiser breakfast (for missions I believe). Again, all of Jeff's siblings met up there and it was so fun to see the pride on his parents' faces to have all their kids and grandkids in one place for a meal. We had a great time laughing it up and hanging out.
Fischer and Xyla

I think this is the first family picture since Fischer was born...oops.
After breakfast we headed to the service at our church. Since it was such a (rare) gorgeous day, after church we grabbed some super healthy lunch corndogs and fried potatoes and headed to a local park to enjoy the sunshine, falling leaves, and some more time with family (Jeremi, Shane, and Micah).
Uncle Shane (Jeremi's husband) and Jack. This picture just melts my heart!

It was Jeremi and Jeff vs. the kids. Still not sure who "won". ;)

Jeff jokingly said, "This one's for FB!" (So I obviously had to make a ridiculous I'mtryingtolookskinny face because that's what you do for FB pics, amIright?)
After the few hours at the park, we went home. We changed into our "farm clothes" and loaded our guns. (Yes, you read that right.) We loaded our guns and nailed some paper plates to tree stumps (because we're classy like that) and had fun with some target practice. I got to shoot my new handgun (that has a totally bad-a$$ built in laser grip)...and then I shot Jeff's crazy gun, too. Whew. You need a stress reliever - this will do the trick.
This is what I plan to carry with me on my runs because there have been so many cougar sightings around here lately.
Jeff just got this gun this past week. It was amazingly fun to shoot.
Needless to say, after this weekend I did not have any trouble falling asleep last night.


 

Friday, November 2, 2012

A little awkward.

Every Thursday night my sister in law (AKA: one of my best friends) and I take our kids to our church where they attend AWANA (kid classes that teach them more about Jesus and God's Word etc.). We love the classes (and not just because we it gives us 2 hours without having to answer to the name, "Mommy").

So last night was no exception. We drop the kids off and head to the nearest Dutch Brothers (on our way to Target - obviously) to grab our Americanos with cream (Y.U.M.). Since I'm off refined sugar and artificial sweeteners, I always carry Stevia in my car with me and hand a little packet of it to the baristas to add to my drink. It was a guy/kid working there last night (is it sad that I consider someone about the age of 19 a "kid" now? I'm old.) and after we ordered he asked us what we were up to (pretty sure they're required to do that) so I told him we just dropped the kids off at church and were headed out to run some errands. He's stirring our drinks and then he opens up the Stevia packets and as he's pouring the white powder into our cups he asks, "So what is this stuff anyway?" Without skipping a beat, I jokingly (!) reply, "Cocaine."

Two things.

1) I have no filter.

2) Seriously. I have no filter.

My sister (who had joked earlier about it) reminded me (while laughing her head off at the crap that just flies out of my mouth in public I blame Jeff) that not 30 seconds earlier I had told him that we just got done dropping our kids off at church. What a witness I am.

Luckily the man child kid laughed and ribbed us right back (and luckily, at least I think, he didn't write down our license plate number or call the cops on us as we were driving away or maybe they just didn't look in the Target parking lot?).

Okay. So we leave there and have a blissful time in Target and then head back to get the kids. By this time Fischer is sleeping in the car and so when we get to the church Jeremi says she'll stay in the car with the baby while I run in and get the older kids.

I send the girls (Micah and Natalie) out to the car while I go to Carter and Jack's classrooms to pick them up. As we're heading out the door the leader of AWANA (Brad) says (in reference to my kids), "You got em' all?" I'm walking past him and say, "Yep! Thank you!" And he puts his hand up and sort of waves as we're walking past. Only since I'm in my social-awkwardly-weird phase after the Dutch Bro's incident, I look at his hand up in the air (waving) and for some reason interpret it as an invitation to give him a high-five.

He just sort of takes his hand away as I'm mid-high-five and I slowly bring my jumpthegun hand down to my side and dart my eyes away from his face (so as not to make the whole situation worse by actually making eye contact?) and take off to the safety of my car lest I be mortified by doing something else involuntarily before my brain kicks in and says, "Notagoodchoice."

Must be all the drugs in my coffee.


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Oh, and for future reference: A hand waving like this one? Apparently it's NOT asking for a high-five.
Photo Credit

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And for Fit Friday:

Down 1.2 this week!

Total lost: 43.2

Still to lose (to ultimate goal): 16.8

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Pinterest Fail.


This was my inspiration for a fun snack for the kids (for our Harvest/Halloween Party last night):

Photo Credit



And this is my result:


TOTALLY NAILED IT.

Note to self: Walk a little further in the apple orchard and pick yourself some RED apples. Apparently it makes a difference because "no one has green lips." Whatever. Also? Chunky "healthy" peanut butter just doesn't work here. For the love of crafty snacks - live a little and buy crappy peanut butter! Oh, and spending more than 30 seconds to make them look nice might help, too, but only if you want your kids to actually be able to identify what the snack is supposed to be next time. Just some food for thought (buh-dum-cha!).