I love me some pizza.

GREAT. Just great.

I can see that in the near future I'm going to have to throw a "Welcome Back!" party for the 50 pounds I have managed to lose in the last 2 years. Tonight I was introduced to the best pizza ever (and I love me some pizza) from a local market in the tiny town I live in. It honestly tastes like goodness in my mouth. I limited myself to a piece and a half, but it could have easily been a pizza and a half. I'm going to have to find a different way home so I don't drive right by it practically every day. Why, oh why does my close-to-number-one-on-my-top-ten-favorite-food-list have to be so quick to bake, so inexpensive to buy, and yet so amazingly high in calories?! WHY?!

I know that I should try to find a "reasonable alternative" that is healthier and yet still de-lish, but lets be serious people, are they ever really that good? And even if they taste alright, are they really a suitable substitute for something that tastes the same as what I imagine gold tasting like? It's like substituting ice cream with a slightly frozen 6 oz non-fat yogurt. Or substituting a Snickers candy bar with a Kashi bar. It.does.not.work. I can feel my taste buds all but laughing at me right now while I am typing this. (And Jeanna, I can hear you saying, "Oh, I love Kashi bars!" Stop it. They're not that good.)

So, here I go. Continuing on the journey of simply "making better choices." I've tried the pizza and now I'm moving on. And anyway, I heard once that "what you do most of the time counts for more than what you do occasionally." I'm going to bank on that and next time I will try my darnedest to drive on past the wonder-world pizza inside the mini-market down the street. I will be proud that I didn't even step on the brake (much) or embarrass my children by waving at the pizza (to recklessly) as I drove by. Progress? Yes. Give a girl a break, I'm doing my best.

Remember When...

- the kids' dressers were more than just an empty piece of furniture that the laundry basket full of unfolded clothes sits on?

- I showered before noon, daily?

- my son didn't get on all fours and drink water straight out of the dog's water bowl because he was trying to convince me that he was a dog so he wouldn't have to pick up the toys in the living room?

- I didn't wake up in the middle of the night to realize that my heart physically hurt because I missed my kids (who were sleeping right down the hall)?

- I didn't think about things like cloth vs. disposable diapers, life insurance, or bacteria on bathtub toys?

- my biggest worry was what grade I was going to get on an exam and not how well I'm doing at demonstrating the love of Jesus to my children on a minute-by-minute basis?

- it would take three days to fill the dishwasher up enough to run a full load?

- I didn't have a daughter who was old enough to ask about "how babies are born?"

- the books on the bookshelves in our home were stacked vertically and not horizontally?

- the thought of buying new furniture wasn't such a joke?

- I couldn't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with my eyes closed?

- my purse was filled with lip gloss, breath mints and bronzer instead of Desitin, sunscreen and bandaids?

- the thought of driving a car with more than two doors made me feel old?

I can remember when my house wasn't as messy, my hands weren't as full, and my heart wasn't as breakable, but I still wouldn't trade now for anything.

Getting emotional over grapes. (Yes, you read that right. Grapes.)

It is possible that I'm being slightly emotional. It's been known to happen. But this morning I woke up and was just sort of having a hard time. Jeff left at 3:45am to catch a plane for a business trip until Friday and the kids came storming in my room fairly early ready to start the day, so I did what any (admittedly) "normal" stay at home mom would do during the first "official" week of summer (and will probably do every week of summer that her husband is gone on trips). I gathered the kids and lined them up snuggly in my (now mostly empty) king sized bed and I turned on PBS kids cartoons so that I could sleep another hour. Pure bliss.

Sounds like a good start, right? Well, that start was pretty great but it doesn't count because I barely remember any of it. The part I do remember is Jack walking up to me when I was attempting to make a pot of coffee, which was a rookie mistake on his part; you don't whine to mommy until after she can smell coffee brewing (he knows that too, it's the part we stress the most in orientation). He was practically falling on the floor in frustration. I mean this kid was frustrated. Mad like I had never seen him mad before (and he is perfectly capable of getting mad). He kept saying, "Help me, Mommy! HELP!" I was looking down at him trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with him, but I could see nothing. I finally got him calmed down enought to get him to talk to me. He shrugs his little shoulders as a surrender and opens his hands.

In one hand he has a little vine of grapes with exactly seven grapes still attached to it. "Do you want Mommy to help you take those off so you can eat them?" Met with, "Nooooooo!" I finally pry the other hand open to find one single small lonely grape all but mashed in his chubby little palm. "This, Mommy! Help with this!" He was trying to put the grape that apparently fell off the vine back on. "Mommy, pplleeaassee!" Oh.my.goodness. The pathetic little look on his face showed how very badly he wanted this grape back on and I have never felt more useless. There was literally nothing I could do. I couldn't put the grape back on. I couldn't "fix" it. I am not super-mommy today.

Like I said before, probably (obviously) an over emotional morning. Seriously, am I really going to be mad at myself that I can't magically put a grape back on it's vine? This was the first of many times that I won't be able to fix it for him and the first of many that I will watch him slowly and simply "get over it." Maybe I should take note from him, and start doing exactly that.

Dear Summer...

Dear Summer (vacation, not weather),

Thanks for showing up. The kids are home and they are running around the house like a bunch of clowns at a rodeo. They are insisting on wearing their new swimsuits even though it's barely sixty degrees outside and you know? I'm fine with it. Fine with the swimsuits, fine with the kids running around and fine with the weather being a little chilly.

It feels like we've been waiting a long time for you to get here, but now that you're here it feels like you sort of crept up on us. We're happy nonetheless.

We are so excited to get to go camping, fishing, turn 6!! (Carter), and the big 3-0! (Jeff). We're excited to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags (the kids, not me). and not have to get woken up before we're ready (again the kids, not me). We are excited to go to the ocean and play on the beach. We get to finally put up the fence in the back yard and build shelving units in the garage. We get to leave the kids at Grandma and Grandpa's for a few nights while I fly to Alaska (a.l.o.n.e. YAY!).

Oh, the possibilities feel endless when you're around. The list is long and the months are short, but we're determined to pack as much in as we can while you're here. Thank you for coming and I hope that when it's time for you to go we will be able to say we enjoyed the time we had, took advantage of every minute, and feeling how blessed we are never forgot to cherish each other's company.

Raising Boys (I should have taken a class)

This morning I picked Carter up from school and took the boys into town to run some errands. Our last stop was grocery shopping (you know, saving the most painful for last). As I was shopping in the produce section Jack accidently dropped a little box of blackberries on the floor. I looked down and noticed that they fell everywhere and so I asked Carter to pick them up quickly and put them back in the box. I turned my back from the boys to pick out some other fruit and when I turned back toward them I saw (along with what I swear half the people in the store were gawking at), Carter scrambling all over the floor (on all fours) shovelling all the berries from the floor into his mouth as fast as he could. I gasped and said, "Carter!? I said put them in the box!" He just looked at me with a purple grin and blackberries all over his face and said, "I just remember you saying to pick them up quickly. That was pretty fast, huh Mom!?"

Do you think there's any chance that when I glanced at the people all staring at my son, they were shaking their heads out of sympathy and not complete shock and awe over what he was doing?

Yeah, me neither. It was judgement all the way. He was fast though, I'll at least give him that.

Lesson in humility #452. Check.

Family Reunion

We had a super fun and sun filled weekend. We haven't had the sun shining on our translucent white faces for quite sometime (seriously, we were starting to resemble the characters of Twilight) but we finally got our fix (of sun, not blood) and it was wonderful! We had a family reunion this weekend at the lake (Jeff's-Dad's-Mom's-family--you follow?). Technically we weren't camping (as when it was time to go to bed we piled into the Suburban and headed down to Jeff's parent's house to crash while they camped at the lake) but we got to spend some great times with family and we all had such a fun couple of days. I can honestly say that I L.O.V.E. his family. Laughing, teasing, and getting slaughtered at Cribbage all weekend. It was nice (besides the Cribbage beatings). Since the sun was out, the kids got to play in the lake, which they have been waiting for for about 10 months. Their smiles and laughter are so contageous I could listen to it for hours. I know it sounds obvious to say but seriously, I love those kids so much! They're pretty awesome, and it was a good weekend.