30 Things - Post #2

To continue my posts to my children on 30 thing they should know about me:

Today we will ask the question - what are my 3 biggest fears and why do I fear them?

1) Spiders.  For sure - spiders make this list.  I hate spiders which is kind of funny because our first home was a condo where there were LOTS of bug nasty spiders who built lots of big webs and we had to weave our way down the stairs and out to my car at 5 in the morning trying to avoid those suckers. Then, when we bought this house it was in horrible condition and was infested with spiders.  It was straight out of a movie infested.  We would pull off floorboard and they would just scatter!  Same thing with our yard. Every step you would take would send tons of spiders fleeing for their lives.  I still don't know how I got over that fear and was able to remodel this house (although I am pretty sure we detonated like 9 bug bombs in the house before moving in!)  So yes, I am terrified of these tiny (although sometimes large) 8 legged creatures.  I refuse to move anywhere where the spiders get bigger than here!

2) Tornadoes.  If I have a bad dream, it is a pretty good guess that it will center around a tornado.  I don't know where my fear of this really comes from.  I remember when I was a little kid we had tornado warnings and there were like 3 tornadoes that touched down in our county.  Tornadoes here will do a little bit of damage but nothing significant.  However, I see pictures of my friends on FB who live where big tornadoes are prevalent and how they sleep in their bathtubs and such and there is just NO WAY I could do that. I also refuse to live anywhere where they have tornadoes.  I'll take the threat of the "big one earthquake" any day over a tornado scare!

3) Losing someone I love.  Now this is a big one for me.  I grew up in a household that suffered a major loss and I learned at a young age that those you love can be gone in an instant.  It took me a very long time to be able to allow myself to take the risk of loving others because I didn't want to deal with the pain if I lost them. Now I have a husband who I just don't know how I could go on with life if I were to lose him.  I have you, my 3 precious children (and more of you someday who are unaccounted for at the time of this post) and I just cannot fathom losing any of you. I prayed so much for you Malachi and felt so hopeless as we waited half a world away for you to come home.  Eli and Sabrina, from the second I knew I was carrying you  I prayed diligently that God would protect you through that scary first trimester. I have prayed constantly for a hedge of protection around all of you. Loving and possibly losing is scary, but it is worth the risk.

30 Things - #1

I saw this idea on another blog, and thought it was a good idea. The concept is that I will dedicate 30 posts to my children and sharing with them 30 things they should know about me!  

Today, in this first post I will be sharing 20 random things about myself for my children to know about me:

1) I am the youngest sibling of 4 and the only girl in my family

2) I love adidas superstars and will most often be found wearing them. Even got married in them.  I used to own over 20 pairs but have simplified my life and only own a few pairs now.

3) You will quickly learn that we love Disneyland and Mickey Mouse in this house.  I have been to a Disney park every year since I was 18 years old (although I do think that streak may end here soon). Your daddy and I have a bucket list dream of visiting every Disney park in the world.

4) We hope to teach you all about financial freedom.  Your daddy and I have spent our marriage working through Dave Ramsey's Total  Money Makeover.  We hope to lead you by example down this road.

5) I love cake. It makes me happy!

6) My happy color is blue. But I also like purple and orange. 

7) I have a huge passion for children.  I have never wanted anything more in life than to be a mom. I often wonder if I will ever feel "done" with having babies in our home.

8) Basketball was the one sport I stuck with and played all the way through high school.

9) I love you fiercely.  No one in this world will love you quite like I do.  I know I fail daily as a mother and will always strive to be better but always know that I love you like no one else can!

10) I am extremely casual.  I hate having to dress up and will always slip into sweatpants as soon as possible!  I wear minimalist makeup and it is a lucky day if I bother styling my hair! I'm not up on fashion trends and I typically don't care what other people may think of the way I present myself (the exclusion is of course your daddy - I do want to look nice for him!)  

11) My favorite season is fall. I love the colors and warm clothes and that it brings the start of college football season!

12) I need 12 hours of sleep at night to feel rested.

13) I love big rollercoasters but cannot do any rides that go in circles. They make me sick.

14) I love baking

15) I am horrible at math

16) I love to shop but have to hold back A LOT on this one to gain that financial freedom!

17) I cannot watch intense tv shows before bed.  If I do, I will have action packed dreams all night!

18) I love Harrison Ford.  Always have and always will.  He's 50 years older than me, but I still have a crush on him. 

19) I am very attached to my pillow. I have had it far too long and I don't even want to think about the things inside of it, but I cannot sleep without it.  It has traveled the world with me! 

20) I don't pay attention to details. I will be the last person to notice someone's new haircut.  After 4 years of living in our house I still have no idea which light switch goes to which light and I have no idea where things are when people start naming off streets - I need points of interest people!

   

10 Months

Yep, another month has come and gone and my baby girl is now 10 months.  It's already time to start brainstorming first birthday photos and a party.  sniff sniff.

Hard to believe that a year ago, I was in my first few days of what would become 7 looooong weeks of bedrest!  A year later and yep, it was sure worth it!  

Our little princess is still so much fun!  She babbles all the time and says "mama" and "dada" and "hi".  She even tries to mimic a few things I say!  She's sure a busy and talkative little gal, but could we expect any less?

Sabrina is now 18 lbs 4 ounces.  I feel like she has really packed on some weight these last 2 months but she is still in the 10-25% for her weight, so I guess she's still steadily where she's been all along.  She's not really interested in bottles at all anymore and is now down to just a morning and nighttime bottle. We've also started introducing her to milk.  She much prefers to pick up and eat whatever is left over on the floor or bits and pieces of our food over purees even.  She thinks she's a big girl now!

Her sleep patterns haven't really changed all that much, although she does seem to be sleeping a little bit more at night (7PM-9 or 10AM) and is taking a shorter nap (2ish hours).  She's also doing this funny thing where she will wake up for a little bit at night and play randomly.  I think her new physical milestones are much to exciting for her to spend all her time sleeping - she must explore!

She is STILL the happiest and most content baby I have ever met.  She is always full of smiles and now that she is on the move, she will just crawl around and explore all day. She may give me a snuggle here and there but for the most part she wants to squirm out of my arms and do her own thing.  The days of long cuddles are now over for me.  I knew it wouldn't last forever.

She is doing about half army crawl still (and she sure can move fast with it) and half "normal" crawling.  She is also starting to finally show a little bit of interest in pulling herself up on things.  But for the most part she is just content to crawl around.  As these next two pictures show, she won't sit still for very long with these photo shoots!

We love you baby girl!  You sure have been a delight these last 10 months.  You are my little sunshine and you just radiate joy!  We are so blessed to have you in our lives! 

Valentine's on a Budget

We have a lot of big and expensive projects in the works right now so an extravagant Valentine's Day was certainly not going to be part of the equation this year! 

Now, I have always been a big fan of Valentine's Day.  There are aspects of the holiday that I don't like. I don't like how it is commercialized or how the cost of flowers skyrockets for Feb 14th.  But I do enjoy having a day where you can focus on the ones in your life that you love the most!  It is just a nice reminder day in the year to share some love!  

So, we agreed that there would be no flowers or expensive dinners and that we would keep this day simple and cheap. I think we learned a few things in the process.  By not spending money on the typical Valentine's Day gifts, we actually ended up putting more thought into the day and we both agreed that this was actually our best Valentine's Day together!  

My morning started with a fun and somewhat challenging scavenger hunt that my husband had prepared for me!  I got a lot of laughter by reflecting back on this clue throughout my day! 

For those that had no idea (like me), this would be your "drunk fighting octopus"!  

And my loot from my hunt :)

                    The kids had a fun morning too filled with some sweets for my sweets! Aren't they adorable!

                      They got to enjoy their Valentine's dessert with lunch!  They were big fans!

I had a few surprises up my sleeve too.  I am not very good at being able to pull anything over on Peter so the fact that our evening date was successfully executed was kind of a big deal for me!  After naps, I hauled the kids off to Grandma's house so that Peter and I could have an evening to ourselves!  

Since we are on a budget, I decided to do dinner at home and picked up a pizza to cook!

Who says you can't have pizza with candlelight!?!   I also lined the path to dinner with "kisses"!

His gifts were his favorite Valentine's treat - the peanut butter heart and since we designate a portion of our budget each month to support different organizations, so I purchased him a new Visiting Orphans shirt (they were doing a 50% off promotion for V-day - SCORE!)  Sidenote: You can purchase your own Visiting Orphans gear at www.visitingorphans.org

                                        And I made some yummy frosted brownies for dessert!

It really was a fun surprise and it has been a looooooong time since we have had a quiet dinner with just the two of us!

After dinner, we went to the most romantic place of all - Home Depot :)

We are in full on "dream mode" right now (hint hint hint of things to come!) and well, a trip to Home Depot to check out some ideas was perfect! Another sidenote: Home Depot is completely empty on Valentine's Day. Go figure!

This Valentine's Day was pretty darn perfect!

For Sale

Remember oh, just a month ago when I talked about 2013 and the year it would be?  Well, it was SUPPOSED to be a year that we kind of took things easy and there was certainly no mention of selling a home involved with it!  Well, if I have discovered anything about our life together, I believe that "taking it easy" just isn't in our vocabulary.  We are always moving full steam ahead for something.

So, as of 2 days ago our home is officially on the market!  I honestly can't even explain the details that led us to this decision but it was definitely something that we would be pursuing sometime in the next couple years anyway.  I guess it wasn't on our agenda because we didn't really consider it as a possibility.  Pretty much everyone knows that the real estate world has just plain STUNK the last few years.  Well, all of that just might be changing and we thought, well hey if we can sell our home for what we want now would be a great time to buy something else before the market really starts going back up (and while interest rates are still super low too!)

Our home has been really great for us.  When we bought it 4 years ago we were hoping we had all sorts of hopes and dreams (which NOTHING went according to OUR plan).  We were thinking this house would be perfect for the baby we hoped to soon have and then a few years later we would have another one.  All that to say, we certainly did not think we would so quickly have 3 little ones in our home! This home has been really nice for us, but it is time to find something a little bit bigger for the family we now have (and will continue to grow down the road).  We feel we are in a great place right now to make a big move like this, even if keeping our house "show ready" is a huge chore with 3 little one's!

So, here we are.  Testing the market to see if we can get any bites with no real plan of where we're headed! Lots of fun for our family of 5 :)

Birthday Overload!

Well, no birthday weekend would be complete without some pictures!  So, here's some shots of Eli's 2nd Birthday party!

 We had his party over the weekend but still had a celebration yesterday on his actual birthday.  We started the morning with some birthday pancakes!

We decided that this year we would have Peter take off the kids birthday's, find someone to watch the other kids and have a special day one-on-one with the birthday kid.  We started by taking Mr E to a park where he played and played and played!  He wore daddy out before he wore down!

 He loved the big slide so much!  And laughed hysterically at Daddy trying to race him down it.  By the time he was done, he had some pretty good speed going on!

When we finally convinced him it was time to leave the park, we headed off to get some lunch.  Poor guy was getting pretty sleepy by this point!

After lunch, we decided to go for a bit of a drive and let him get some sleep before taking him to the toy store to pick out a new toy.  We sat in the car for a good 20 minutes after getting there and let him have a 45 minute or so nap.  That was not enough and I guess we should have called it a day after lunch because he just really did not enjoy himself.  We finally got him out of the toy story with a new ball and he seemed happy enough.

Before calling it quits though, we had to make one more stop to get a free birthday scoop of ice cream for little man!

2 Years Old

Happy Birthday to my sweet little Mr E!  I can hardly believe that in the blink of an eye my precious little 5 lb sweetpea is already a 25 pound bundle of energetic 2 year old!  You bring so much happiness into our lives. I'm not sure a baby boy could be any sweeter.  You are still my child who likes to cuddle the most.  You're the only one will relax and lay your head on my shoulder.  You always want mommy to cuddle with you and sing to you at naptime and bedtime.  You always tell me that you love me in your sweetest soft spoken voice.   You're almost too sweet for words!  

Before you were even a year old you had a fascination with balls. Your collection has grown quite a bit over this year (and even today we took you to ToysrUs and gave you the option of any toy and you chose a $2 ball!)  By 15 months you had mastered a nice jump shot and you will still always choose a ball to kick or throw over any other toy.  I can't even count the number of balls we have accumulated for you (and probably another 10 or so that he got for his birthday!) You've got a good arm little man!  We all can't wait to watch you continue to grow your talent as you clearly got some athletic genes going on.  You may be small, but you are mighty! 

You continue to amaze us with all your new skills.  You have an amazing vocabulary for just being 2 years old.  You have also amazed us with how easily and quickly you became potty trained!  You want to be a big boy just like your big brother!

You are obsessed with your daddy right now.   Anything he does, you want to do.  Good thing you got the best role model in that department! You may love your daddy but I still know I'm your favorite ;)

Oh precious boy, if you only knew just how much I loved you. I have never been more terrified than I was on the day you were born.  There is no love as fierce as a mother's!  Your health scare brought out a mama bear protectiveness that Daddy still has to remind me from time to time that you are okay and that I need to let go a little bit and not try to protect you so much.  You are quickly growing and wanting to be your own person and you are a daredevil (which does not help the above mentioned over protective nature!)  You are sweet, soft spoken, stubborn, temperamental, cuddly, and lovable!  You have the sweetest little eyes that you can turn on to charm mommy whenever you want!  You are one amazing little boy and we look forward to everything this year of your life will hold as you continue to grow!  Happy Birthday lil lovebug!