Okay Sideburns

I have to tell you a story...
today Nick and I went garage saling with little Cal in tow. He was sitting behind me and kept putting his feet on the back of my seat (ugh, so annoying). Anywho, I asked him to stop and do you know what his reply to me was?
"okay sideburns"
Oh geesh. Nick says that all of the time to myself and the children so of course that is where he got it from.
Anyway you've probably been wondering where I've been. And if you find out, could you let me know, because I've kind of been wondering too.
Truth is I've been in major funk-ville lately. Just can't seem to shake it. Please pray for me. Whatever it is, it's got to stop now. NOW, you hear me? NOW!
So anyway, sorry I didn't fill you in before, it's just becoming so regular for me to have to say "sorry I wasn't writing gang..." but in reality I would love to write.
I am thinking that maybe if I force myself to come up with things to write about then I will be writing about things that I do. So I will actually do things other than housework and kid stuff and blah, blah.

Desires of your heart

This morning during my devotion time I was reading in the book of Psalms. I'm horrible at remembering where a verse in the bible is that I like so when I stumbled upon this one I was so happy:

Psalms 37:4
"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

This is a fairly well played verse...if you're a Christian you've probably heard it before.

This verse has a particularly great meaning to me. I was working at a Christian Bookstore over Christmas break during my freshman year of college. I had been exposed to all that was out there at a party school and was really looking for a fresh start. More than anything I wanted to find a godly man who would be my husband. I was stocking shelves and all of a sudden I came to a bookmark lying askew on the ground with this verse on it. Well I bought the bookmark and it really became my mantra. I prayed it over and over and I really tried to delight myself in the Lord. How hard can that be, really? Christ died for me! That's not something that is really hard to celebrate, you know?

Anyway, about three weeks later I met Nick and the rest is history. I've always deep down thought that this verse kind of kicked off our relationship and has kept us going ever since. We delight in the Lord and what He was done. We are married with our home, I get to stay home, and we have two wonderful children.

Today delight yourself in the Lord...He WILL give you the desires of your heart!

Things I've Learned Tonight

1. Target (a Target that doesn't have food) is a particularly lame place to buy eggs. Why did I think to go there to buy eggs?




2. Oh yeah to look around at everything else




3. Target is a lame place to hang out pre-prom.






4. Not cool






5. Prom attire is ug-o as of late. Yikes.







6. Or maybe people who shop at Target while in their prom dress with their prom dates need some fashion help.







7. Cinnamon rolls are horrid to make the night before. I want to eat them all. NOW.












8. It's 11:21 pm




9. Listening to Pink blaring on the radio when I am alone makes me feel not so alone in the whole "feeling lame" ordeal




10. Starbucks should make nothing that doesn't have mint in it.




11. Please excuse the double negative. I don't talk no good.




12. Good night.

Grass.
Birthday Party.
Cat Birthday Party.
Arguing with Emma every 5 seconds for her to not tell her brother she will kill him if he doesn't get out of her room.
Getting Cal out of Em's room.
Pitching story ideas to my editor like a Cub's pitcher.
A bad Cub's pitcher.
Oh it's the Cub's for pete's sake...they're all bad pitchers.
Who are we kidding?
Arguing.
Watch out.
Wrapping clementine's in yarn.
Again...kitty cat party.
Shooting my son up with medicine because he's allergic to grass.
Putting new grass in.
Training the dog to pee in the ivy not the grass.
Eating leftover cinnamon rolls.
Cleaning everything.

Yeah, that's how this week has gone...how has yours been?

This Vile, Vile person

I wish I could tell you that everything here is hunky dory all of the time. As it should be.


Duh.


I am a child of God for pete's sake.


Whoever Pete is.


Hey Pete.


But I am so often stressed it's just frustrating.


Nick thinks I should start smoking.


How nice.


There are things that I find I am stressed about that I didn't even realize I was thinking of because they have become so engrained into my mind. Here are a few of them:


Parenting...am I doing this right?


How bad was today? I'm a terrible mother!


What am I doing wrong with Cal?


Again: I'm a terrible mother (please repeat to self 57,000 times to get the point)


Bill...are there bills due today? I paid the bills that were due earlier right? Why on earth am I in charge of paying bills anyway?


Run frantically to computer to check...again (sigh)

Of course I did.
Kick myself because I doubted myself...again.
Wonder if Nick is happy with our marriage.

Sometimes I worry about things that are just silly. Why didn't I want to call my friend today? Should I call my friend today? Is God trying to tell me that I should call my friend today but I don't want to so that's why I feel guilty for not calling my friend today? Pray that I'm doing God's will. Still not want to call my friend. Pray again. Realize I just don't want to talk on the phone.
Then realize God doesn't play head games.
Duh.
Realize I over analyze everything...EVERYTHING.
Wonder if I am upset I over analyze everything when in fact God maybe designed me to over anyalyze things so am I in fact upset with the way God made me?
Please repeat "over analyzes EVERYTHING" about 1200 times more.

Where was I?
Oh yes, I feel bad about not praying enough.
About eating too much.
About sleeping too much, or too little. Of which I can usually never remember which I am guilty of that day.
Of reading too much.
Of cleaning too little.

You are probably starting to agree with Nick that I should start smoking.
Or Chewing.
Or Both.
At the same time.
Is that even possible?
Ewwww.
We don't smoke, we don't chew, we don't date boys that do. then stick out tongue for affect.
I taught that song/rhyme/poem to Emma the other day.
It was while I was trying to break into someone else's car.
I about ripped off the door handle before realizing that it wasn't our car.
I laughed.
Emma laughed.
then we ran.
To our car.
Then we laughed some more.
I guess as long as I have moments like that throughout the day then I can deal with my constant worry and weirdness and anxiety.
I often times think its my personality. Or a disease. Or I'm just weird.
Whatever it is, I would like it to stop.
Thank you.

The Three-Piece Suit

There can't be anything sexier than a man in a three-piece suit. Right? That is unless you are talking about my husband when he has taken off the jacket from his three-piece suit and then...
ow-ow!

(whistle, whistle)
That's one fine package of man meat wrapped up there.
Sorry family...just had to say it.
I love this man. Glad he's mine.
He is fyyyyyine.
He makes my heart skip a beat.
With butterflies.
And goose pimples.
I think I need to go find that guy.
Bye.

conjumbilation

My counter space in the kitchen is a relatively clean work environment. I don' keep mail on it. I don't use it for shining my shoes (gross). I like to keep every day household things off of it to allow room for the fun things in life...cooking, baking, cleaning.
No for shizel dizel, this mama likes those things.
Promise.
I ain't lyin' dawg.

Okay sorry for that. Snoop Dogg had taken over my body. I'm back. Weird.
Anywho...there is thie weird wooden counter that is in my kitchen though and that is where things seem to "end up"
See what I mean????
Scroll down carefully as this may be harmful to your health...

"eeeeekkkkK!" you scream!
See what I mean?
The weird thing is those socks you see?
I looked everywhere for them yesterday.
Apparently not everywhere. But I looked everywhere where it seemed that socks would be.
Yes those are mine.
Yes, irresponsible is my middle name, got it.
Yes those are clean.

You all have piles of kaaaa-wrap that isn't home there right?
Right?
Hello?
You know, you could just LIE to make me feel better.
But that is LYING...refer to 10 commandments.

Where were we? Oh yes, the random crud. And speaking of crud on your counter tops, have you seen my countertop? Does anyone with a history major or wild passion for interior decorating know why one would have a wood countertop? It is not fancy butcher wood that would actually be useful, oh no.
Plain old wood.

So yes, just wanted to show you this clutter and let you know that this is my life. Fortunately I have the counter clutter mostly confined to this small area.
Which houses canisters.
Which reminds me of a super cute story.
Cal, Em and I were making cookies the other day and Cal pushed all of the canisters together.
"Buddy What are you doing?"
"Look Mommy, Daddy vun, and Mommy vun, and Sister vun, and braaaader vun"
"Cute bud"
"It's us Mommy!" clapping! "It's our family"
Makes me tear up. That's us, just a family of canisters.

The REAL way to Easter Egg Hunt

If you thought getting your basket out and skipping gaily through the yard was the way to hunt for Easter eggs, boy were you wrong.
This year Nick thought it would be fun to take the kids' JEEP to Gram's house to hunt easter eggs. They had a blast.
Well, sort of.

This is how it went most of the time. Cal drove, Em hopped out and got eggs. Gee go figure. Guy sits around relaxing while girl gets up and does all of the work.
Haven't heard that story before.
I wonder where they concocted that dynamic from.



Here is Cal zooming along. Doesn't he look devious? He is out to hit someone. Which he usually did. Only as much as you would think it was on purpose based on that face, it's not.
Nope. And how do I know you ask?
Because homeboy can't drive to save his life.
If you think JEEP driving is bad you should see the kid on a tricycle.
Watch out folks the kids driving a lot of metal around!
Where was I?
Oh yeah, look at how cute the eggs are in the back! I love it!

Here's what happened for most of the time...

Emma hopped out and was all cute finding eggs! Can I please just keep these kids little forever??? Who told her she could go getting all grown up and stuff? Uh, so not cool. Anyway, Emma get's out and is adorable and...

Cal drives away. Because that's how he rolls apparently.

Yes.

Pun totally intended.

Judge not lest you be judge.

Pun judger you.

And as adorable as Cal is too, kind of irks ya to watch him make Emma chase after him.

The little weasel.

I guess to make it even Nick and I will just have to eat some of their candy.

Seems only fair to me.

Easter Egg Hunt

This past week Emma had an Easter Egg hunt at school. Would you like to guess who was in charge of it? That's right, yours truly!
I straight up am not good at things like this. But parent's (thank God!) donated candy and Nick and I stuffed 250 easter eggs. I made whoopie pies with the typical-like cream cheese filling and m&m cookies.
Then my new best gal pal Natalie and I hid them. So much fun! Dishing and hiding eggs at the same time is a blast!
Emma always looks so little to me when she is with other kids. That's normal, right?

Emma with her boyfriend/best friend Eli. How cute is he? How cute are they together? Coincidently my new friend is Eli's Mommy...we are all very, very happy in the friend department these days!

Emma pulling up her pants because...

I see biscuits! I saved you from the crack shot! Her poor dilemma of a non-existant buttser means her britches are always falling down and her biscuits are hanging out.

You also all really love that I put her in tennis shoes, don't you? She and I call them "sneaks"...cause we're sooooo cool like that .

Opposite Day

Good Friday we decorated Easter Eggs because I'm such a good mother and made sure we didn't decorate eggs at the very last minute and had ample time to enjoy them before easter.
Oh yeah, you didn't hear?
It's opposite day. :/

Also because I am an amazing mother my son doesn't have 8,000 bandages on his chin. See, I'm a fantastic mother who was watching my son while he was not screaming about taking a nap and so then he didn't have the chance to flail himself around his room. Since he was in my
excellent care he didn't crack his chin open.
See?
Opposite day.

Okay. I didn't take this picture. Nick was in charge of the children at this point because I was making dinner. See what I mean about last minute? So I was looking through the photos and came across these and it made me smile so much. I'm just imagining him handing the kids these glasses. He probably told them they were egg-stra special dying glasses.

Of course Egg decorating is an event that calls for antlers, right? I mean the reindeer will deliver all of these to special boys and girls.

Oh wait, wrong holiday.

Whenever I say holiday I hear Dick Van Dyke, aka, Burt (Bert?) singing "ow, it's a golly hawlidae..."
That's normal right?

Love :)

Super proud of myself that I bought two sets of dye an special egg cups...last year they had a death fight to the finish over the colors...this year there will be no sharing.

I am a great mother. Here kids, don't learn how to share, I'll just buy you each your own so we don't have to teach life lessons.

Like I said, opposite day.

Stink List

1. Coffee...why is my coffee soooooo much better on Monday mornings than any other time? Hmmmm???? Little elf people maybe. maybe. I'm serious dude, the coffee rocks my socks.

Coffee is one of those words I have to keep typing because it looks weird to me spelled right.
And wrong.
So then I have to figure out which is right. And which is wrong.
You know what I mean right?
No?
You stink.

2. I smell of garlic. Not some oh gosh you remind me of my plumpy grandma making baked ziti smell. Nope. Rather a oh my gosh, what were you rolling around in, some type of garlic aoli all night long?
We ate at Bonefish last night for dinner.
We hardly ever eat at bonefish so really I am kind of a fish out of water ordering there.
Pun intended.
Laughing ensues...
thank you, thank you.
Wheer was eye? oh yeah...so I ordered some devil dish and the next thing you know I am warding off vampires or something.
ugh, I stink.

3. Our house is trashed. I mean, college boys came over from animal house, trashed my house and then moved on to the next one, trashed.
I'm unclear as to how this keeps happening.
Except for the fact that my kids think I am some type of maid.
What was the maid's name on the Jetson's?
Rosie?
Reebok?
Reebox?
Roseanne?
Hmm...it was something with an R.
This stinks.

4. The kids do in fact think that I am a maid. Now that I theeenk of eeeet. Shoot, gotta stop that somehow. Wasn't that a brilliant deduction? I'm certain they think of me as a maid because this is how mornings work:
Wake up, shuffle, shuffle, yawn, shuffle, shuffle
Emma comes down stairs
Calvin comes to the stairs..."momma! get me!"
Momma says "no buddy, just come downstairs"
Repeat last two lines in your head 47,000 times
Cal comes down stairs.
Sits on couch.
Yells (no matter how close I am btw): "Snack and drink!"
Repeat last line 52,000 times.
So maybe they don't think I'm a maid as much as Cal thinks I am a maid.
Which I am not.
I must disengage this behaviour.
I put u's in words sometimes to seem cool. Behaviour. Saviour. Colour. See? You think I am smart-like.
Anyway, what was I saying?
Oh the maid thing...
Yeah, being a maid stinks.

5. I have to workout this morning.
Hate working out this morning.
Or afternoon.
Or evening.
Or any other morning/afternoon/evening combo you can swip-swap at me.
This stinks.

6. I am thinking of not sending Emma to school today. I told Nick about that yesterday. Me being the world's weirdest mother doesn't just decide to skip school. Nope, gotta plan. That's me. I'm a planner.
Anywho, I told Nick I was thinking about not taking Emma to school and he asked "why not?"
And I said "because I don't feel like it."
And he said "uh huh"
These are very deep convos we have.
Don't you ever want to just stay holed up in the world and feel like you are missing things just to be together?
We just keep runnin' and runnin' and runnin'.
And that stinks

7. Dog puke. Yep, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the dog puking. Nice, huh? Cinderella awoke to singing birds. I awake to the sound of Snots working up a bone. Thanks a lot. Being the ardent house cleaner that I am (see #3) I put the pillow over my head and went back to sleep. When Nick woke up I think I managed to mutter "watch where you step. The dog puked!"
Nick didn't find it but I did. On the rug. With no socks on.
Gross.
That stunk.

8. The cat peed in my dressing room! How disgusting is that? It was last week and So the kitty has been living in the bathroom. She goes in this week to the doc to see why she did what she did. Apparently kitty's don't pee for no reason...excuse that double negative. I'm not quite believing that. I think she's secretly out to destroy me. To me it doesn't stink. I think I got it cleaned up in time. And cleaned up and cleaned up and cleaned up. But for God's sake if you come to my house and my house stinks, you have to tell me. Got it? I don't want to be THOSE people.
I think I'm going to go clean it again.
Just to make sure it doesn't stink.

He sat in the middle of the store. On a little kid bench. Legs sprawled, he hunched over to play paper dolls with Emma. I stood in line to buy jeans and felt a huge lump in my throat.









I am not going to cry while standing in line at this store.









A giant of a man to me. So tall. So brave. So handsome.









Suddenly in a clump, practically on the floor, willing to do anything with his daughter.









I'm sure so often this guy feels like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders: bills, a huge work schedule, a naggy wife, tons to do around the house. How often through the day does he secretly feel like a clump? So close to the ground when he should be standing tall?









It's my job as a wife to make him feel like the tall giant of a man he is. He's huge in my eyes. He's the tallest, bravest, smartest, kindest man in the whole wide world.









I hope I always make him feel tall and never make him feel like a clump.

yeeeaaaah....

So as you can see I've been out of the picture for a while. Just busy...no reason. kind of burnt out. Sometimes I wake up motivated and sometimes more often than not I wake up not wanting to do anything.

Did I mention that last week was Spring Break? We had so much fun. Can't wait to be homeschooling!

Did I mention that we have decided to homeschool the Kazoo? We are so flipping excited about it. Emma is too! I can't wait to see how this turns out. And no worries...if I completely am horrish at teaching then to school she will go next year. But I don't think that will happen.

I've already got the kid in first grade curriculum...in every subject.

Who needs Kindergarten anyway? Ha!

Anyway, I promise sometime soon I will start writing again. And when I do, watch out.

I've been in thinking mode (which is always bad, I know!) about how to do this. Sometimes I want to do it and sometimes I don't. Thinking that maybe it's time I vamp this up a bit and try to actually have a professional blog? Dare I say it??? We'll see.

With that one needs to have a niche and let me tell you, niche I have none of. It has to be something you do. Well here's what I do:

Hang out with my grandma
Crafts
Homeschool
Shop
Coupon
make out with my husband
Cook
Walk around our yard pretending to be gardening

Yeah that's about it so unless you want me to show you how to make out with your husband (gross) I'm plum out of ideas.

Well, till next time Matilda...

Bowling

Here are Emma and Cal with their bowling balls...they were so proud. Didn't realize till we got there that I had him in a "that's how I roll" shirt...teehee :)

This past week we also took the kids bowling...it was a seemingly busy week! Whew! The kids had a lot of fun. We did too! Poor Nick basically had to throw Cal and his ball down the lane each time. It was a great time too as Nick and I had our first ever date going bowling! We went with two friends and I always tease him that he flirted more with my friend than with me! He swears it isn't true but it really was!!! Oh well...we all know how that story ends!

Here's my hottie of a bowler! Nick's a really good bowler so he really enjoyed this!

Here are Emma and Cal waiting their turns...Cal had a REALLY hard time waiting...he was great though! I love their little bowling shoes, too cute!

Here is Emma bowling...she did great and they put up bumpers for the kids which was fun

*Sorry if the format of this blog is all janked up...no idea what this thing is doing :/