Five years as ONE

2008; marry the man God created for me

2009; go to Vegas, spend the summer in two different locations but survive, try to train for a half marathon but get hurt, have fun in college but work & study a lot, buy some bikes for our anniversary, pass our big exams for our majors (praxis and FE), live the life!

2010; student teach, capstone project, graduation!; myrtle beach trip, move, new job, make a baby; settle in

2011; have a baby, all that brings, visit family; we've arrived!

2012; move twice, enjoy the best coast in so many ways, make a baby, buy a house, have a baby; survive

2013; manage a home and two babies, celebrate life, run a half marathon together, clean up our eating, lose weight; THRIVE

I have to say, every year brings new challenges but also new rewards. Our first five years have been incredibly full and I wouldn't change a thing. I married my better half and have been more full, more whole, more myself than I ever could have dreamed before meeting him.

I don't want to come off bragging; I'm simply so complete and I want that for OTHERS too. If I could figure out a way to help everyone with a marriage vocation achieve the peace that comes from a unified marriage, I would share it. Am I lucky, or something else? I think I'm probably like any other gal, but it's that husband of mine. I think he's the one that makes our marriage beyond the norm. He cares about me, cares about the marriage, cares about our success. He listens to me, he contributes in many ways, he knows how to handle my personality, and he is self-less. It encourages me to be the same. 

I married the right man for the job. He's the one that needs to teach other men how to fulfill the vocation of "husband." He can start with our son <3

 I know there are a ton of other great marriages out there & trust me, I AM so HAPPY for you all :):) I just am sharing about mine, on my personal blog, on our anniversary. Plus, I know there's a lot of bad marriages out there, and I want any one in one of those to know...marriage can and should be GOOD. Not always happy, but unified at least. If you are truly unified through GOD, you marriage will never fail. It is a Godly institution and with His help, all things are good.

Love you cjb

Happy anniversary!

Painting date for year 5

Next week my husband and I will celebrate our 5 year anniversary. Where has the time gone??

Several months ago I booked us a BYOB painting class with a groupon. I love to paint and BYOB is right up my husbands alley, so I figured it'd be fun! For Valentines Day 2011 we did a painting together (at home) and I think we both really enjoyed it...so even though my husband wasn't thrilled when I told him we were going to do this official painting date, he had a good time :)

The problem was the whole day was pretty horrible & I've been very stressed lately. We needed to pick up food on our way there and didn't have time, so I was starving. I blamed nearly everything on my husband and we were barely speaking by the time we got there. Ugh. Luckily, as with all things, we got over it and the evening wasn't a complete wash. 

I seriously love painting. I just like being creative, artistic, etc

And you know what? My husband is better at it! I love him so much.

I'm very expressive in life, but even the instructor commented how expressive he is on canvas. He may not be too expressive with words or emotions (very often), but with painting he is waaaay better than me!

Take a look!

Love you honey! Excited for our anniversary dinner next week and I promise to be in a better mood. Thanks for forgiving my faults

Xoxo

Hilarious quote from G, Christmas style

G asks to hear stories, all.of.the.time.

It started out sweet, and sometimes it still is...but it also gets a bit annoying trying to come up with a story on a moments notice.

So at nap time today I decided to tell her Jesus' birthday story and that's why we celebrate Christmas. Yes, I know it's early but it's already in stores and we've been looking thru the Christmas stuff any time we are at Target. And she's been saying she wants a doll house for Christmas for like 2 months.

So anyways, I think it went just like this;

"You know how we celebrate Christmas? Well that's Jesus' birthday. That's what Christmas is. Cool, huh?"

"Yeah! Then when it's my birthday, it's MY Christmas, right?"

I said "yeah, kind of...but not really...errrr"

Lol

She's too much.

Also today, we had been butting heads a lot. Mostly I blame it on my stress, but regardless, it's been tense around here. Well, when I went to nurse J before nap she asked to come in and watch me. Which is kind of weird, but also kind of sweet? She just wanted to sit next to us...not like stare at me all creepily. I told her she could as long as she was VERY quiet. 

Turns out she can be quiet for a very long time. I was really impressed & it was very sweet to have my two babies in the dim and quiet peacefulness of J's room. 

Then she about ruined the mood by throwing a fit when we went to her room to get her ready. Ugh! Luckily it's date night (first in a long time!)

Halloweenie

G was a smart cookie

And j was a mizzou tiger

We had lots of fun this year :)

Shame on you Mercy Academy.

Have you guys seen the news coverage of the Louisville Catholic school ad that tells girls they don't have to be princesses? 

While I don't think girls are "princesses," I think this news is just CRAP. I get what they were trying to do, but it's terribly executed and bad press for Catholic schools. Though I know they say any press is good press...such is the time we live in.

I think the issue is this is a catholic school and God had no mention in the ad ("rooted in faith" was as close as they came), and it was a very "I" centered ad--like annoyingly so. How about God writing my story? Being a woman of God? Getting an education to help serve The Lord in whatever vocation he lays out for me? 

If this was a secular private school ad I would understand it a little more; but as a proud Catholic woman, I think it's a lame publicity stunt and have a terrible taste in my mouth after watching it.  How did the priest or bishop sign off on this? I don't think there should be any amount of debt that would warrant bypassing the fact that you are a CATHOLIC school in order to have such a ridiculous ad to attract students. I'm sorry, but I would never send my daughter to this school. 

This school could have used their platform to come across more Godly but they didn't. Sad day. And you guys, I wouldn't be surprised if the school nurse promoted abortion. Because with this ad? It basically screams, "you are in charge!! Who needs God's plan?"

Sure, they're "innocently" trying to convey they anti princess agenda, and I'm very much okay with that...but watch the ad and tell me you come away from it knowing this a catholic school. (The uniforms help to convey that message, I guess)

See the ad here;

http://today.com/moms/girls-school-tells-students-youre-not-princess-2D11585037

Ugh!!

Happy Life and kid updates

Generally speaking, this present season of life is the happiest I have ever been. Praise God.

The kids aren't perfect, our house isn't perfect, my husband isn't perfect, I'm not perfect. But together? We are perfect. Sure, not by the world's standards....but by God's? Yup. Things get messy. Fits get thrown. I come down with the stomach flu while my husband is away on business and I have two young kids to take care of. My 2.5 year old gets the stomach flu two weeks later, and then so does my husband. My 11 month old son pulls hair like it's hilarious. He falls down a lot, and currently has a bruised eye and temple. There's not money enough to justify fixing things that could use fixing (but don't absolutely need it, so there's that!), or getting by husband a better truck. I lose my temper far too often. My kids don't sleep as good as they could, and they play favorites at the least opportune time. My husband doesn't always do things like I'd like them done....

BUT.

My husband did all of my weekend chores when he could have been working on the lawn, while I had the kids grocery shopping. He brought me flowers on Halloween. He cares about how I'm doing and listens. He plays with our kids. He doesn't complain when I hide away in the bathroom for a few minutes, er, 15 minutes, of peace. My marriage comes first and it shows. We work on things together. We check in and keep working at it. Without each other, we aren't half the people we are together. That's why we got married, duh, because we were meant to be together. I thank God several times a day for such a blessing in our vocation.
My kids give the best hugs, even if they don't last as long as I'd like sometimes...when they do, I savor the heck out of them. When G says, "I love you soooo much," part of me floats above the clouds. When J lays his head on my shoulder and breathes deep, I feel like I'm over the moon. Tears well up in my eyes when I reflect on how smart they are, and how fun it is to be their mom. I wish I could lay next to their peacefully sleeping bodies and soak in the love...but that'd be weird, I guess.
I love playing with them, and I am working on being more present during the day with them. It's not always easy, especially with working from home and having the type-A personality I do (As far as house cleanliness and organization goes). But by God, my family is worth the effort.

Tonight was great. I had made an eat-clean lasagna about a month ago and froze it. Tonight I served it for dinner and we had plenty of play time afterwards because the clean up was really easy. I think I should aim to do this once a week.

Anyways, just wanted to check in :-)

kid updates,

J -- loves pointing and is super speedy with his push-walker-toy. He's doing awesome in respect to milestones/health. He has a sleep study consult in two weeks and an orthopedic spine doctor appointment in December. He loves eating, and is working on self weaning, which I'm actually bummed about, but he's still nursing about 5 times in a 24 hr period. He can stack two blocks and tries for more. He's practicing shape sorting and likes playing kitchen. He's, thankfully, taken a great interest in books too. He learned to drink from a straw cup after trying for like 3 minutes. He's got the spoon to mouth motion down, but needs the fine motor skills to get the food on the spoon. He is really tough, and is all boy. I think he's really smart, but too busy to focus on it. Oh, and WOW he hates diaper changes.

G -- Holy terror of terrible 2-3-13, you name it. She's a firecracker...and I see too much of me in her. She's ridiculously smart, as in, my parents say she's smarter than me, so there's that. She enjoys Daniel Tiger and other PBS shows too much. She loves books, and we still go to the library every week. She drew her first "family" picture this week, it was awesome. She loves personal attention, and shines when she gets it. She loves helping, and is still the best big sister in the world. She's very well behaved in public and I just can't say enough about her vocabulary. I'm blessed for sure. <3

Super Food Muffin {eat clean recipe with kale, pumpkin, carrot,cranberry and apple}

I love baking treats, but when we started eating clean....I had to, by necessity, cut way back. Sometimes, if I think about it, I get a little sad, but not really when I button my pre-two-pregnancies-pants. Even now, when I eat unclean ice cream, sure it tastes good, but it's not nearly as delicious as I thought it was before I wasn't addicted to sugar. Man that stuff is a drug.

Anyways, I get my baking fix these days through muffins. I've always loved to make muffins (my specialty used to be Banana Blueberry Muffins), but now they just have a super healthy punch. I recently came up with a very healthy Fall recipe. Seriously, you can't feel bad about eating these things (unless you're Paleo or GF, in which case, I feel bad for you). There's Vitamin A, B, C, D, K, Iron, Calcium, Protein...the WORKS. Plus other stuff I don't even know, like minerals--Magnesium, Selenium...does that sound right? Just google Kale. It's a super food. And these muffins taste awesome!

...okay. If you are used to sugar treats and pastries, you're not gonna love these the first time you try them. But if you are trying to work in more veggies, give them a shot. If you already eat clean, then you will DEFINITELY love these and your eat-clean kiddos will gobble them up! My daughter is too smart for me to hide kale in even her eat-clean-style mac and cheese...but hidden in muffins works like a charm. And for the record, she ate like 6 pieces of lettuce tonight, woot!

Eat Clean Pumpkin Carrot Kale Cranberry Muffins

makes 24, takes about 1 hour including prep

Dry Ingredients;
1.5 cups white whole wheat flour
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
(or you can use 3 cups of all of one kind and subtract the other)
.25 tsp salt
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vital wheat gluten (I used for added protein here, but you don't need this ingredient)
1 tbsp baking powder
Wet Ingredients;
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs, beaten
.5 to .75 cup agave nectar (based on your sweetness preference) (you could use honey instead)
.75 cup all natural unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla (pure)
about half a bunch of kale (leaves only), should be around 2 cups
about .8 pound of carrots (I used almost a whole bag of baby carrots)
-- grind up the kale and carrots in the food processor at the same time, to tiny pieces but not pureed, before mixing with other wet ingredients--
Folded in at the end
1 to 1.5 cup of washed fresh/frozen cranberries (can use raisins if needed)

Preheat oven to 365, just to be fun. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl; in a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients. Blend the two together, but avoid over mixing. If batter is too dry, add some Greek yogurt extra pumpkin puree, or almond milk, but this batter is supposed to be fairly stiff. Fold in the cranberries. You're welcome to try these topped with chopped nuts of your choice, or even fold them in too. Prepare muffin tins with either liners or grease of your choice. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake for 18-24 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean, turning half way through.

 Enjoy :-)