Life Lately!

As per usual, I have done a poor job of keeping the blog updated. So prepare for some rambles.

easter morning

We've been super busy. A major factor was the wreck I was in about 6 weeks ago. The long story short of it is that I went through a yellow light, t-boned a car that was turning, and it totaled my car. Her insurance has accepted liability for the wreck but I haven't gotten money yet. We had to buy a new car because it was the only vehicle we had that the kids could ride in. We were not prepared for that kind of expense. We financed all of it. It's an 07 toyota with over 100000 miles on it, so the rates, regardless of my 800 credit score were terrible. So I started tutoring 4 nights a week to make some fast cash. It's helping, but it sucks to have to be away during the dinner hour. I know it's tough on my husband to have to come straight home from work and be thrown into only caretaker at home role (also making his work day much tougher because he literally can't stay late even if he wanted to because he has to get home to watch our kids). I know this is a middle class, stay at home mom problem, so I don't expect any pity. I am still working for Happy Family about 30 hours a month, and trying to make other cash as I can. My mom suggested I advertise that I would do other family's ironing....but ironically I'm like the only one that still irons. My friends joke about it.

If I could keep G this age forever, I would. She's pretty much perfect and I am super lucky. She's respectful, funny, sweet, caring, and smart. But she still does get selfish sometimes, and does throw some diva fits but it's really totally manageable.
She is doing great at her sight words and working on adding. I'm trying to help her practice saying the hard g and k sounds. She's not able to do it--she always sticks her tongue up like for a duh and tuh sound. If she hasn't figured it out by fall, I guess we'll do speech through the public school. We are going to start her in official kindergarten this fall (homeschool). I also taught her how to play the card game "war" this weekend. That's a subject in homeschool right? Part of socialization, right next to paper rock scissors. That's another thing we've taught both the kids. Life with a 4 and 2 year old is pretty fun.

J is a little less difficult than he was a month ago, so that's positive. He sometimes (versus rarely) stays in his bed--but naps are still tough initially. His vocabulary has exploded but his pronunciation and others' ability to understand him are still bad. He knows his colors about 90% of the time, and a few letters. They are proving to be challenging because he's less interested and I have less time to just sit around with him and casually play. Second child probs. I've considered putting him in 'gym school' like G goes to now in the fall, and using that time to hit some serious home school lessons with her. She'd be pretty jealous, I bet though, so obviously I'm looking for some enrichment program for her. Right now my top choice is a nature school once a week. J is also very sweet. Yesterday he shared the elmo snack cup with G, even though I gave it to him. She was having a diva moment about not getting it, and after he realized that she was sad, he handed it over to her. I melted. He also gives the best hugs and kisses. Sometimes if I snuggle him to tightly he says, "mush! mush!" (smushed!! smushed!) and it's really the most adorable thing ever. He is super bright (even if not interested in learning letters), and I caught him 'reading' brown bear brown bear to himself before nap today. He understands patterns, routines, and is getting quite good at puzzles. He plays pretend so well and takes turns better than any other 2 years old I've seen (aside from G).

After all of the baby shower sweets and foods in early March, we decided to do another Whole 30 to bounce back from the yucky feelings physically and mentally from so much junk. It's been a lot easier this time around, but we are both pretty much done with being so strict. Yesterday was Easter and I made us a paleo fudgy brownie for our 'treat.' It was made with whole 30 compliant foods, but the presentation of it as a brownie is really not allowed on the whole 30 program. I'm not sad about it, because it means we didn't eat like crap or have tons of Easter candy, as in years past. So if nothing else, the sweetened with dates treat gave us a sense of some kind of tradition.

The husband's job is keeping him quite stressed, but he's managing it well. I think not drinking (due to whole 30), has really helped him figure out that he doesn't need it to manage stress. I'm sure there are times when he really just wants a drink, but he deals with it and is stronger for it. So I'm proud of him there :-) We thought we might be moving back to California, but that doesn't look like it'll be happening anymore.

I'm feeling stronger than ever, and happy with myself (not really my abs, but I know that's vain so trying to ignore the nagging mental hang up about them). My faith is at an all time high, and there's no going back there. Far from perfect, it's a life long journey toward holiness.

Speaking of.. How crazy do you think we'd be if we went to Philadelphia in September for the Pope's visit?? I mean. He's so awesome, truly radiates God's good news, and we both would love to go see him in person and experience all of the faithful people there too. And we'd want to take the kids, because....how awesome is that for them!? But A) money and B) that's crazy.

Other things we've been up to;
home improvements
gym time
park time
bike rides
planning our future

see more easter photos below!

opening easter presents that grandma and grandpa sent

throwing easter grass while wearing tiara grandma sent

G at 4 years old

I wrote most of this before G's birthday with intentions of updating a little bit and then posting...but life got crazy after her birthday (home projects, wreck, visiting family....) so here I am a little bit late on her birthday post.....

Four years old sounds super old. I have memories from being 4. I mean, they are very specific moments, without a lot of context. But my daughter will likely remember some of the things happening in her life now even when she's 28. I sure hope I am doing a good job as her mom.

She is very, very observant. And smart. She has always had a great memory and I love how her thirst for knowledge is relevant to the world around her. She makes adult like connections within her head and asks appropriate questions to fully form her thoughts about a subject.

She does have a few linguistic quirks (re; mispronunciations) still but I think they are adorable, of course. She can pronounce Justin Timberlake just fine though LOL (The other night we were driving home from my sister's house and "Not a Bad Thing" came on the radio and she asked me "Is this Justin Timberlake?" ... I busted up laughing and said "yes!" I have no idea how she knew that??? and her pronunciation was perfect, so that's fun). She can also prounounce St. Thérèse just fine (because she asks me about the book I'm reading which is about that most amazing saint). Her mistakes are usually when there's an odd combination of vowels or s or l in certain places of the word. Her vocab is off the chart, so that's fun. Thankfully, I don't think I've ever heard her say a bad word... which is saying a lot since expletives are my vice.

She is a super healthy eater and asks if things are healthy, have sugars, or have dyes. She enjoys vegetables (not beets!) and chooses healthy options. She does still like mac and cheese and hot dogs (but I choose the better versions of those childhood classics) Her favorite foods are-- strawberries, (GF) cereal, oatmeal with berries, cucumber chips, chicken nuggets (I don't usually feed them to her, but they are a favorite so I'm listing here), salad (specifically spinach, but other lettuces are acceptable, no dressing), bacon, tomatoes, grapes, graham crackers, granola bars, steak, sausage, potatoes, butter, cheese, green beans, peas, apples, almond butter, pizza (we usually make spaghetti squash crust but she loves wheat crust)
It's hard to write about food with her, because she will eat just about everything (no beets and no spicy); but many of her favorites aren't paleo and we are trying to avoid them (not completely for the kids especially right now). Suffice it to say for posterity, she eats well and makes me proud with healthy options.

She rarely takes a nap, sleeps about 10-11 hours at night, and weighs about 33 pounds (she is 3 feet and 3.5 inches tall). That means she is hovering around 29% for weight and apparently hit a growth spurt and is 46% for height! She's in between 4t and 3t clothes, and her foot is a size 9. Her eyes are gray-blue and her hair is still super white blonde.

She is working on reading. We've been slowly and occasionally working it. Her gym school sends home 5 sight words a week and then we work on them at home. The next class, she practices them with her teacher, too. She is moving right along and I bet will be reading by summer! She's been able to sound out words for a few weeks now (but if they aren't easily sounded out then she has trouble, hence sight words being a good thing).

She is fairly athletic, but not aggressive. She loves the idea of soccer, but she will need to develop some more 'fight' to be competitive at it. She likes gymnastics but I don't know if that will pan out. She is also a funny little dancer and loves music!

She loves school pages and her handwriting is pretty good, above average for her age. She has said her favorite thing to do (inside) is puzzles, but loves playing at the park when it's not cold.

She is super loving and very compassionate. She cares about other people and wants everyone to feel loved. She's also really shy though. I think she's introverted for sure, and may end up with my same personality. I'd obviously be okay with that ;-)

She recently spent time with family, away from me. I'm happy to hear that she was decisive, helpful, and kind. She was a big help with J, so that's nice.

She gets anxiety watching certain shows (like Wild Kratts when a bat flew into a plate of brownies, or Thomas the Train when an engine was going too fast and made a mess, or Veggie Tales when there was a villain). Basically if things don't match up to how she knows they should be, she gets nervous. She doesn't cry or get mad, she just says she doesn't want to watch it anymore and fidgets with her fingers. I'm glad that I'm there for her and can talk her through these situations, hopefully giving her the mental tools to cope with anxiety and uneasy situations since life will throw her more than that within a few years.

Speaking of preparing for the tough stuff. She recently had a discussion about heaven with me and she asked me what happens to a kid if their mommy and daddy go to heaven. "who takes care of them?" ..... so that was tough to not just pick her up and shower her with kisses and tell her that'd never happen to her...... but life is so unpredictable and I don't lie to my kid. So I just explained that there are lots of people on earth that would love that kid and take care of them and then the kid could get to heaven someday and see his or her mommy and daddy again. I also took care to remind her that heaven is a good thing and if the mommy and daddy were in heaven, we should be glad for that.

For her birthday at gym school she wanted to bring a treat that even the little girl with allergies could eat them. So we found a recipe that was free of dairy and eggs (the allergies), got it approved, and took them the class before her birthday. She was really proud to be able to share something with this little girl, and I am really proud of my sweet girl for being empathetic.

I could go on and on telling the wonderful things she does, but it'd get redundant, so here are some photos from her birthday (a separate party post to come eventually)

ps. She can throw fits and misbehave rarely, but it's usually only when provoked by her brother. I really couldn't dream of a better girl.

My greatest accomplishment

Let me never forget these days. 

What is Grace? From a 3 year old perspective

My sweet husband taught G to say the "Hail Mary" prayer a few weeks ago and she's been perfecting it every night since. This past week she has been following up the prayer with a question about some word within the prayer. A few nights ago she asked me what sinner means, last night she asked me what holy means, and then tonight she asked me, "what is grace?"

Stop. My. Heart. or SMH for those abbreviation loving readers. She is so thoughtful, smart, and inquisitive.

My answers have been age appropriate but also as close to literal meaning as possible. I've told her that everyone is a sinner. That we all do bad things sometimes, and that if we aren't being good, that's sin. She's used it in hilarious context since. I told her that holy is the opposite of sinner. That people in Heaven are holy, and that if you are really good and be nice to other people then that is holy.
But tonight when she asked me about grace, it was so hard. How would you describe grace to a 3.5 year old??

The definition is "simple elegance or refinement of movement" or "the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings" or "to do honor or credit to by one's presence"

There's really no way to break that down on a kid level easily. So I gave it my best shot. And stuck to the Christian definition.

I said that grace is when God helps people be holy, or good. It is when people are full of good feelings and thoughts and they do good things for other people. She seemed happy with that but then followed up with, "where does grace come from?" So I said it comes from God and it's inside people. So then she asked how it gets there. {I wanted to tell her that we get it at Communion and at church, but I didn't want her to worry that since can't have grace since she doesn't get communion yet--so I left Communion out of it.} I just said we get it at church, when we go to church and sing songs and say prayers. Then God puts grace in our bellies. I said that it goes in our bellies like magic from God and then it goes up into our brains and helps us do good things for others. So then she asked how God does magic.... (I mean.... I don't know okay! LOL) I said that God can do anything and he is so awesome that everything comes from God and he can really do all kinds of cool things, even cooler magic than Abbie Cadabbie (from Sesame Street....).

She wasn't convinced. She asked several more times how God gets grace in our bellies. And I tried a few different word combinations to explain it. Then she absolutely floored me and said the following.
G: "I think that maybe God puts grace in our bellies when we go to communion and the big people up there give us stuff and we get grace from God in our bellies like that."


I KID YOU NOT. This amazing three year old just gave you the most basic description of the beauty of Jesus/God in the Eucharist. All by herself.

I love her. I love how beautiful her mind and heart are. Thank you Jesus for giving me this most amazing gift. God is so amazing and I just know he has been leading her little heart through this prayer and learning what all of the words mean in it.


And the coolest thing is that she started asking those questions all on her own because she wants to understand the words she has been taught. I know Mary is up in Heaven totally smiling and clearing a place for this sweet girl in heaven. She will move mountains some day. But for today.....she's a totally typical 3.5 year old that had a meltdown because she didn't want to leave her best friends house.

Outer space with kids

My kids, mostly the 3.5 year old, have been super interested in planets, moon, stars, etc for a while now and recently we checked out a pretty awesome, though dated, book from the library.

It really helped her learn the planets better and we even did one of the projects out of it teach just how far apart things are on a visible scale.

It is -- http://www.amazon.com/Planets-System-Lets-Read-Find-Out-Science/dp/006445178X

The planets in our solar system by Branley

There are tons of kid solar system books out there and I just encourage you to start young with kids and science! Never too early to teach the scientific thought process and help them learn more about the world around them.

The first photo is of G's project (saturns rings are drawn on it rather than around, fyi) and the second is the awesome moon from our leaf walk yesterday around 5 pm

Two years!

It's been two years since we moved to Kansas.... I can't really say that time flies, because we've done so much in those two years that it seems like we've been here forever.
The time we spent in California seems so long ago, an entire kid ago, if you will!

Since we've been in this house we've upgraded it in small ways; mostly the exterior color (hooray for gray!) and some inside fixing-up and paint. It feels enough like a home, but it's not our forever home. So we've got that itching to move lately. We really want a bit of land with a kind of homestead...but it's out of our financial reach in the area we live, so we have talked about moving and can't reach anything conclusive. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted.

It's so strange to have been here this long. We haven't lived anywhere this long in the 6 years we've been married. No wonder my husband says he feels 'claustrophobic.' I wouldn't describe my feeling like that, but it's something for sure. I want to live in this area forever, but not knowing if we will or not causes me some stress.

I love the friends I've made here, and the family that isn't too far away, and my BFF that's less than 45 minutes away....and the kids are settled in with our favorite places and people and routines.

So I guess what I'm getting at is that we are at a tipping point. I told my husband the other day, we either agree to stay in this area for the foreseeable future, or we start planning to move and actually do it. Because I don't want to get any deeper than I already am, or it will hurt too bad when we leave. And I think we agreed that no area is better than the metro, so we'll just have to move outside the expensive land area if we want to get our 'homestead.' Good thing I'm planning to homeschool for a while because those school districts that we can afford aren't really great.




and while I have you, just a quick family update.

no races in our future, which is taking a toll on the waist lines LOL (but not too bad, thanks to still mostly clean eating)
I've been making all kinds of fun recipes, and I really should be better at blogging them... speaking of, I've been thinking of buying a new domain and letting this one revert...something to the affect of life with momma, or something like that... I thought maybe in the kitchen with momma, IDK
J is fully potty trained and it's awesome. He is such a big boy now, except for his lack of talking. We're working on that with speech therapy though. He is amazing at pretend play, and the therapist said she often forgets he's not 2.5 because of how advanced in all other areas he is. I think he's an albert eistein type for sure.
G is a real blessing (except for when her head is spinning around, KWIM?). She's so sweet, loving, and compassionate. She loves red still, and daniel tiger. She also is currently fascinated with learning the planets.(I think last time I really wrote, she was into the moon) Science FTW!
They both love helping me do just about anything, and doing projects keeps us busy.
Being outside was so awesome this fall and winter...hence why I didn't really blog! We were living the life man!
Fishing and park picnicking were our favorite past times--plus visiting family and taking our two trips.
And.... I'm still in physical therapy for my diastsis recti, and it's super sucky. Basically I need to have surgery but that sounds about like the worst thing ever to me.

Happy Fall Y'all!

What's a brain?

My conversations with G before bed are always fun, but tonight was spectacular and worth remembering for sure. We talked about various things and then she asked what we were doing tomorrow (...which she always does. She likes to know what's coming up. She is a future planner and is very detailed oriented.) I told her the run down and then she asked if the next day was Tuesday. I said no, the next day is Monday. She said, "oh? What are we doing on Monday?"

I told her the main this is taking J to the ear doctor. Of course she asked why and so I said, "to make sure he is hearing well and that his ears don't hurt or anything." She asked, "why?" To which I said that his ears are a little different and we just have to check them sometimes. She asked if her ears were different and I said, not really, they're pretty regular. Then she mentioned how sometime lady bugs are different (last night I told her a story about a lady bug who was black with red spots instead of red with black spots)...to which I said, "yes that's right sometimes they are!"

Then she asked who J's ear doctor is... And I told her his name. She then said, "oh one time we took J to the nosey doctor and that's dr XXXX too!" I was so floored at this point because it's been months since we went to the ENT and she remembered his name that she heard like once! So then I said, "yup! It's the same doctor for his nosey and his ears. You're so smart! You have a big brain, huh!?"

Then she asked what a brain is..... Yeah, been waiting for that one! Haha

So I told her that brains are like computers for people. That they tell us what to do...whenever we have thoughts that's our brain and they are inside our head (I pointed to show her). I also gave examples of things brains do, like tell our body to move in certain ways, or have thoughts about our friends... I mean it's tough to explain to a 3 year old but I did my best.

She seemed appeased with the answer and then asked if I had a brain, if J had a brain, if daddy has a brain...and I said yes to all of them.... THEN she asked if daniel tiger has a brain (lol!!). I said, "sure! But only the daniel tiger on the tv show, not your daniel here (in her bed), he's just squishy so he doesn't have a brain" then she said, "just a squishy brain!!" And burst into giggles.

Oh man, I love this girl so much!!!! Our nightly conversations are the best <3

Just wanted to record for posterity and maybe someone else might find it amusing! 

Day in the life of mom

Alarm at 425 am, up and ready & out the door by 4:46

5 am, workout, today was lower body circuits. Rocked it.

6:05-6:45 am, home, shower, throw on the toddler-mom summer uniform of athletic shorts and a collegiate t shirt, eat a post work out first-breakfast (Greek yogurt, honey, PB, apple), kiss hubby good bye (the benefit to early morning workout is I'm actually awake enough to tell him have a good day).

Close to 7 am I consider (A) folding the laundry sitting in baskets next to my bed or (B)starting the cleaning I've got scheduled for the evening but I'm pretty spent and so I make the rare decision to (C) lay down on the bed for a while.

7:40 am, little miss enters my room to say "I need to go potty!" She used to just get up and go, but now it warrants an announcement I guess, so we traipse downstairs because she likes going down there better. I start a load of laundry.

7:50 am, she (thankfully) doesn't ask about watching a show, so we decide to do some "school pages" (I bought her preschool reading, preschool math, and preschool sequence & patterns workbooks and the first two are completed & we're wrapping up the s/p one now)

8:25 am, I think J is awake (didn't grab the monitor, I was just hearing thumps through the ceiling) so we head up to get him, but it turns out he's not (we had a late night and busy weekend so I guess he's catching up, too bad he's not my only kid so I could actually enjoy the late sleeping ha!)

8:30-8:50 am, instead of returning downstairs I start folding the clothes in my room & G asks what she can do now, I tell her she can play, look at books, or help me. She's not keen on any of it and whines a good amount so I dump out the whites and tell her to comb through it to find her underwear. She's great at helping so that goes over well. Then she gets antsy and so we chat and sing songs while I finish. J is still a sleeping toddler, so we decide I'll make breakfast and G can watch a show

8:50 - 9:30 am, laundry switch, swiffer floor, empty dishwasher, make breakfast. G watches end of dinosaur train and start of sesame street. 

9:30 am, G turns off TV with no fight (huzzah!) and we go get mister-man up. His diaper is super smelly (taco salad the night before eeeek). He hates diaper changes these days so :-( to that

9:40 am Breakfast is whole wheat grassfed buttermilk pancakes and blueberries on the side. The kids have agave on top of theirs and mine are plain. I don't always make a fancy breakfast like that but it's grocery store day and somehow we are all out of dry and hot cereal and there aren't any weekend leftovers and I only have 2 eggs. Whew.

9:50 am, the treasurer from my mom group drops by to get a check I forgot to give her yesterday, my bad!

10:05 am, kids are down and playing while I clean up. It's good for them to have unorganized self moderated play. At least this is what I tell myself while I slave away in the kitchen because I'm too type A. Don't bother telling me to save the mess for later, ain't happenin' sister. Although I did leave a few hand-wash dishes in the sink, mostly because I was washing my dryer mat.

10:15 am, told the kids we were gonna get ready and go do a craft at the library...G pitched a fit because she didn't want to go. Are you kidding me??? She loves crafts and loves the library. Ugh #lifewithagirl I roll with it because, hey, it's not something we HAVE to do and I'm not gonna fight her to go do something fun. We do have to grocery shop though.
10:20 am, we facetimed with Grandma to talk about visiting and since we hadn't in a while. It went okay. Of course G was shy at first and J was a little ham who then got mad when I wouldn't let him hold the phone.... We chatted about 10 minutes and then got ready for the store.
10:50 am, head out the door....this is a process, almost every time. Need to potty? Where's our socks? Do we have snacks and drinks packed? Why are you both crying? Ugh, Ugh, Ugh! Why do we even both leaving the house? Because the fridge is bare...so here we go!

11 am; I was in the mood for paradise by cold play so I turned it on and got this sweet conversation from G; 

Me; jamming out.

G; What's this song called

Me; Paradise

G; What is paradise

Me; Paradise is a beeeaaaautiful place

G; oh yeah! Like you also skate on ice! Right mom?

11:05 am, we drive past the library and wouldn't you know G pipes up "I do want to do a craft!" "I DO want to go the library!" I think about saying, too bad, you shouldn't have said no at home....but I really wanted to go myself, so I give her a hard time about not making that decision at home and how we don't have our return books or our library card so it's going to be more difficult but we will definitely go and to the craft because it's something fun to do and next time let's make that decision at home.
11:10 - 11:50 am, decorate a Styrofoam cup with crayons and googly eyes, shovel in potting soil and plant a sunflower seed with each kid. Check out a few books and play a bit.
11:50 am head out to the grocery store. J hates his car seat now (it's really time to move him up to the big boy seat) and so getting into the car is never my favorite thing.
noon, arrive at the grocery store just as it's feeding time at the zoo. Oh well. I salvage the trip preemptively by utilizing the race car carts that have two seats and steering wheels. My kids have never got to sit in these (hello germs!) but I make the exception today after Clorox wiping it down (I used 5, in case you were wondering how many it took). They are so stoked! I also hand them their snacks and drinks and we mosey inside.

12 - 1 pm, stick mostly to our list but still manage to spend $180. I hate how much healthy food costs. I did buy like 8 packs of Sargento cheese though because it was on sale. Also got; peaches, pears, cherry tomatoes, lemons, grapes, cherries, two packs of power greens, radishes, butternut squash, egg plant, bell peppers, cucumber, pineapple, Italian sausage, regular sausage, omega 3 brown eggs, almond milk, grassfed cottage cheese, 7 yogurt cups for the kids, tub of grassfed Greek yogurt for us, pita chips (splurge this week), nitrate free ham, several boxes of annie's homegrown snacks for the kids to take to grandma's house, 2 things of honey, 'clean' strained tomatoes jar & 'clean' pasta sauce in case I don't get enough homemade sauce out of that, oats, 5-grain cereal (bob's brand), blue-pom wheat-fuls (MOMS brand) cereal for the kids, non concentrate OJ (2 plus calcium/D and 1 plain), nitrate free bacon... I think that's it. Of course we had our occasional hiccups of behavior, but overall it was pretty good thanks to the 'lets-be-real' cookie from the bakery I let the kids scarf down because they were teetering on the edge of fighting. Mostly I hated the trip because of how expensive it is. I really wish we lived in the country so I could get into gardening. I have to say though, we'd probably spend the same amount on food even if we weren't eating clean, just because we never eat out and I never did like to buy pure crap. I did earn 10 cents off per gallon of gas too.
1:20 pm, get home and unload the groceries.
1:30 pm, G is used to getting to watch a show while I make lunch...that became a habit after her preschool camp two weeks ago, soooo yup. Another 20 minutes of screen time here. Grand total of an hour, so I'm fine with that. J doesn't really care about TV, he ends up flipping through some books and then bugging me for bites. G actually takes his cue and looks at her new library books too instead of really watching the TV. Win.
2 pm, lunch is a homemade wheat bun turkey, cheese, spinach sandwich for G, with veggies & fruit and a few organic corn chips. I have a salad with (leftover) grassfed beef sauteed with carrots/onion/garlic/homemade taco seasoning plus cucumber chips, radish, bell pepper, salsa, a slice of pepper jack cheese and some organic corn chips. J has a combination of our two lunches cut up smaller. For dessert we split 2 graham crackers and milk. G has to go potty in the middle of lunch because she's gotten into that annoying habit, but better that than blowing up.
2:40 pm, kids play / fight while I clean up (don't worry, I do have G help me a little bit by carrying things over)
3 pm, switch a load of laundry and corral the kids upstairs to get ready for naps. I usually aim for earlier than this but the morning was long.
3:35 pm, both kids are in their beds after reading books, telling stories, drinking water and such....J cries for a while before zonking out (I think it's because it's the first time since Friday that I put him down) and G never goes to sleep.
4:30 pm, after an hour of 'quiet time, I get G up. We read a few books, change some laundry, pick up toys, and start dusting
6 pm, check to see if my husband has called to say he's coming home...no dice. G and I keep plugging away on our cleaning/playing. He finally gets home around 6:25 pm.
6:25 pm, get J up from his nap since he was still zonked out. I don't usually ask my husband to make dinner, but since it's just grilling and I want to finish my cleaning, he obliges me. He gives the kids a snack of yogurt while prepping dinner and I clean upstairs. Dust, vaccuum, , toilets, sinks, organize...thankfully I'm jamming out to some tunes and it's enjoyable :-)
6:45 pm, the kids head outside with my husband. I'm sure it's a hassle, but he's sweet like that ;-)
7:30 pm, I'm done and we start to plate dinner. I change J's diaper and he's actually cooperative! Hooray.
7:45 pm, Dinner is grilled butterfly pork chops, grilled zucchini/squash/carrots/mushrooms, grilled sweet potato, and grilled butternut squash
8:20 pm, done with dinner, and yes G had to got potty during dinner again.
8:25 - 8:45 pm, I played with the kids a bit and my husband cleaned up outside. Then we both start cleaning up the kitchen because many hands make light work and the kids play.
8:45 - 9:10 pm, family dance party to josh turner. It's super fun. My husband and I dance together to part of a song, despite the kids whining at our feet. I tell him, sometimes you just have to have ear muffs. We dance with them all the other times, we deserved a minute of solo dance LOL
9:15 - 9:30 pm, get ready for bed, which is all together. My hubby takes care of J and I help G. Then we come together to read books and say prayers. The cutest thing happens while I'm reading the book "What Brothers/Sisters Do Best." J is holding G's cup and offering her a drink (Water) and G picks up J's cup and offers him a drink...so they are sitting there giving each drinks. It was really precious, especially because they were giggling and smiling at each other. Life is good! My husband puts J to bed and I stay with G for a little bit. We chat about the day and our plans for the next day. One of my favorite parts of the day is when she says, "Mom will you stay with me for a little bit." and I say, "of course baby." I lay my head next to hers on the pillow and we snuggle up. It is so sweet and peaceful.
9:45 -10:15 pm my husband makes his lunch (I used to do this for him and then I just kind of handed the task over in exchange for me doing other stuff) and I pack up for my job the next day. After I'm done I stay in the kitchen with him for a minute and grab a few bites of the munchies he's eating...had told myself I wasn't going to snack after dinner anymore but his pretzels look so delish. so I have a handful and don't feel bad about it at all.
10:30 pm, after getting ready for bed myself, I lay in bed for far too long typing up this blog and I still don't finish so at 11:15 pm I save it and go to sleep.
apparently my hubby came to bed around midnight after watching two of his deadwood shows.
We used to go to bed at the same time but since I've been getting up early to work out, I try to go to sleep at a decent hour.


So there you have it...this really was a typical day in the life of me :-)
now you know why I never really post any more! love to you all 

Helper tiger and picnic

(Should have posted last week, lame blogger!) 

Our summer has been going along swimmingly aside from some stress, a cr repair, and a sinus infection bug that went through the house.

I'm going to try to post more here...so lately we've been....

Picnicking (mostly I pack our picnic but yesterday we had coupons and went against clean eating for a convienient and yummy chik fil a dinner)

Trying to fish as a family. Pretty challenging with young ones and a terrible fisher wife. Nice memories though.

Working. I have been doing a lot of happy family work and the kids usually come with me to small things. 

Reading. Summer reading program is in full swing and j is even growing in his attention span. He loves Pete the cat and llama llama! 

Cooking. Clean eating has been a year habit now, and it's awesome. Ie definitely gotten into a grove with the cooking and meal planning. It's just expensive. Anyone that tells you they eat clean and well on a cheap budget is crazy. There's no going back though. I can't let myself but anything with crap in it. It's shocking how well I shop the perimeter, except at target, yo'. I've been feeling generally great about myself and it's really only if we are traveling and I've not been eating well or if I've not been able to work out that my body image gets out of wack.

And then there's my helper tiger!

Check out her folding skills, to the left of my trifold are her half folded small towels. Love her!!