Category Archives: family

This weekend rocked so hard.

Oh man, last week drained me. I was ready for the weekend. And the weekend? Did not disappoint.

Saturday morning was pretty laid back…Andy worked outside for a bit while I hung out with the girls. While Reese napped Rylee & I had a tea part picnic then packed up a real picnic lunch. The whole family piled in the car and headed into town. While I got my hair cut, Andy took the girls to a nearby park where they played. After I was done, they picked me up and we ate lunch out of the back of the car.

After lunch, we headed down to the fairgrounds for the big home & garden show. It was packed! We strolled the aisles looking at ideas for a chicken coop and for our back patio we’ll be putting in this summer. {side note: Can I just point out that this will be the first year that we’re able to spend money on Our OWN house instead of dumping money into our rental! Holy crap we’re excited.}

Apparently the home show was just too much excitement for the girls because they both passed out while we were walking around. I had Reese in the ergo and Andy was carrying Ry. He got the short end of the stick on that deal!

On our way home from the home & garden show, Rylee was chattering away, then out of the blue said, “I’m so glad we’ve had a family day today.”

Back at home Andy went back to work outside while Ry played in the SUN! I tried to pick up the house a bit. After Reese woke up from her afternoon nap, I fed her, then Ry and I loaded back up and hit the road. We picked up my dad then went up to Corvallis for the OSU women’s gymnastics meet. For the first 20 minutes or so, every time the gymnasts did something {anything} she’d stare in amazement and half-whiper “whoaaaa”.

Ry did pretty well, only asking to go home just before the very end. It was about an hour past her bedtime and she was beat. But apparently on the walk out to the car she got a second wind because she was awake the entire 45 minute drive home asking my dad to tell her stories about when he was little. It was just as heart-warming as it sounds.

Yesterday was spent working around the house trying to catch up on everything that didn’t get done on Saturday. Andy worked outside all day {country living folks, the work never ends!} while I took the girls grocery shopping, then came home and busted out 6 loads of laundry, cleaned out the fridge, cleaned the kitchen, made some baby food for the week and a bunch of other random stuff.

We topped off the weekend with enchiladas for dinner and fresh brownies for dessert!

My soul needed the weekend is a serious way…sunshine, family fun mixed with just the right amount of work.

How was your weekend?

Currently v.2

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Eating…pizza for dinner tonight. The last few nights I’ve ended up overwhelmed over the tiniest little things and I hate it. So, tonight, as per my sister’s wonderful suggestion, I’m picking up Papa Murphy’s on the way home from work. We never do that…in fact, I think this will be the first time I’ve ever just picked up a pizza on my way home on a whim.

Drinking…a giant Starbucks Iced Coffee. And yes, I realize it was only 30 degrees this morning when I left my house. I don’t care. I didn’t have any coffee beans ground last night when I went to get the coffee pot ready and I wasn’t about to accidentally wake the kids to do so. So instead, I packed the kids up 10 minutes early and hit Starbucks before work.

Listening…to nothing. I really love silence.

Reading…nothing. I just finished the book I was reading {The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks} last night. I’m already wondering what I should pick up next. Shhh…don’t tell anyone, but I think I actually like reading now.

Thinking…about all sorts of things. First being my upcoming girls weekend trip I’ve got planned with these girls. Four weeks and counting down. I need this. I think we all do. The other thing I’m thinking about is last night…when the girls & I got home Rylee noticed the giant puddles in our driveway and asked if she could jump in them. I figured, why the hell not. We both had a blast…her jumping, me watching. It’s making me smile just remembering her giggles.

Linking up with Lindsey over at OtandEt!

I always thought there’d be three.

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It was something we talked about long before their was ever an engagement ring on my finger…Three kids.

Now fast forward about ten years, a giant mortgage and two kids later…a lot has happened in the last ten years…especially the last 5. Three kids is no longer in the cards for us. For a variety of reasons, really. We don’t think it’d be fair to Rylee at a minimum of 6 years old to be starting over, again, with a baby. Where would we physically put three kids? Then there’s the whole money aspect of it all…our financial situation is much different than we thought it would be during those dreaming years. A third child means we’d need a new car….new cars cost money. And three kids in daycare, well, that’s a lot of money too. We want to pay for our kids to go to college…putting three kids through college wouldn’t be an option. We want to retire someday…preferably before we’re in our seventies. Not to mention we’ve already got two weddings to pay for someday.

There’s a number of people that have told us to do it anyway. That we’d figure it out. If there’s one thing about us, it’s that we don’t rely on the “we’ll figure it out somehow” rule. If that were the case, our girls would be two years apart and not four. We would’ve bought a new car years ago instead of driving around the ghetto-fabulous Buick.

These girls of mine are growing so fast. Rylee will be starting kindergarten in the fall. She can’t wait to ride the school bus. She wants to get her ears pierced. She’ll be transitioning to a booster seat before long. Reese is a crawling machine. She’s got three teeth. We just bought her size 3 diapers. Andy walked into get her after nap one day and she was sitting up in her crib. She pulled herself up to standing the other night.

I used to ~~sort of~~ make fun of moms that talked about getting all emotional and weepy going through and getting rid of their baby’s outgrown clothes. Now I get it. I’ve become that mom. As I go through all of the outgrown baby clothes, I hold up nearly every piece. Think about the memories each one holds. Both my girls wore these. I’ve set aside my favorite pieces to hold on to for my sisters when they have kids. I’ve also set aside a few of my very favorite pieces, like what they wore home from the hospital, to keep in my cedar chest.

Last week when Reese was sick she didn’t want to nurse. At first I thought no big deal, but as the days went on, I wondered if she was just done with it and my heart sank.

I knew right then and there in my heart, I’m not ready for this journey to be over.

It’s a very surreal feeling…coming to terms with being done having kids.

My heart is absolutely full, overflowing even, just watching my 2 girls together, but there’s still that little part of me that thinks…I always thought we’d have three.

Incomplete thoughts & Incomplete drafts

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I clearly haven’t been that great at blogging lately. Crazy how life kinda gets in the way. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about blogging. In fact I’ve had almost a half dozen or so unfinished posts just sitting in my drafts for up to three months now. It’s things I want to share but either don’t have the time to really finish or just don’t have the motivation. So there they sit…partial thoughts and half written posts. Until now…

Hawaii
We’re headed to Hawaii!! While we’re going for a wedding, we’re doubling the trip as the family vacation we were planning for our tenth anniversary. First I was excited with the idea. Then I booked plane tickets and had a mild panic attack soon after I hit “buy now”. {Not having discretionary funds for so long does messed up things To ones mind when it comes time to actually buy something not technically “needed”. Having the money in the bank makes no difference.} Now that I’m done with the freak out, I’m back to excited. Because Lord knows we’ve earned a vacation and…HAWAII! I’m sure come June I’ll be looking for tips in flying with a 1 year old.

Baptism
We had Reese baptized back in early December. Yep, over 2 months ago. It was a low key ceremony held with just family right after mass. My sister and my brother are her god parents. Reese is wearing the same gown that Rylee wore, that was hand made by a woman in our church. The deacon that assisted in mine & Andy’s wedding, whom also baptized Rylee, baptized Reese. That meant a lot to us. {and being the mom of the year candidate I clearly am, I forgot the camera so all we have are phone pics. Winning!}

Car
Back in November we bought a new car! I’ve mentioned it a time or two before, but have yet to “give you a tour”. It’s pretty much awesome. We love it. We’ve had it barely over two months and we’re already taking it in for its first service. In 2 months and one week we’ve put over 5,000 miles on it. That my friends? Is a shit-ton of driving.

Blogging

Right now I’m kind of struggling with some blogging things. I’d love to grow my readership and eyeballs that see my little corner of the Internet but lets be real…I don’t write earth-shattering-viral-material, I’m not an “authority” on anything, I’m not a DIY-er, my photos are hardly pin-worthy. I cook some really tasty things, but I seriously lack in decent food photography skills. Or really any photography skills for that matter. Heck most of the time, I’m recycling photos I’ve posted in Instagram. Why would people want to come here? Why am I really doing this? For me? For my girls to look back on someday? Sure, that’s all part of it. I squeeze blogging into my lunch breaks because when I’m home from work, I’m cooking dinner, bathing kids, putting them to bed and oh you know, attempting to relax with my husband. It’s blogging this is something I do for fun and my family comes first. So what I do needs to be enough. I’m currently in the process of coming to terms with that. {in the meantime, if you’d like, feel free to tell all your friends about this super awesome, hilarious, riveting, real, ____(insert chosen adjective here) blog.}

Beach body

Back in September I wrote about being ready to lose some baby weight. Then…well…I didn’t really follow through with that. I mean, technically I’ve lost the weight and I’m back down to my pre-baby days {thank you breast feeding!} but things are…squishy? {Seriously…my poor belly button} Now that we’ve got Hawaii on the horizon I’m officially motivated to get beach ready. Instead of focusing on losing lbs, I’m going to focus on losing inches and toning/definition. I want to be fit and healthy. Not just a certain number on the scale. And let’s be real, no way in hell I’m giving up coffee creamer, cheese, my daily sweet tooth attack and the occasional dr. Pepper. I’m not that motivated, people. I’ll be meeting with a friend/personal trainer in a couple of weeks. She offers classes at her own gym but I’m not able to make them due to my schedule. So we’re going to go over my goals and she’s going to show me some exercises I can do at home, or on my own at the gym near my work. And yes, I’m actually planning on blogging my progress.

Lingering.

This cold/crud I was down with almost two weeks ago is still lingering and its driving me bonkers! At this point I feel fine and it’s nothing more than a stuffy/runny nose and a cough…but holy crap is it annoying. I’m thinking how Andy must think he married the sexiest woman in the world every morning as I’m hocking up loogies in the bathroom while I’m getting ready. What can I say? He’s a lucky man. Hawt, I know.

So there you go…all of my half-written posts wrapped up in a pretty, mediocre bow. I’m off to clear out my drafts and start fresh next week. Happy Friday!

Currently v.1

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wondering how much milk I’ve got in my freezer. How much I’ll be needing for my next trip. And how much I’ve got available to donate to a baby in need. I’m adding that to my mental to-do list for the weekend right…now. Also wondering if I’ll ever have the time to finish up all the lonely half-written blog posts I’ve got sitting in my drafts.

loathing this stupid cold that will.not.go.away. I’m about to get all up close and personal with my neti-pot tonight. I always forget I have one.

cooking some new things. Last weekend while I was meal planning I felt totally uninspired…in a rut. Enter Pinterest! Last night I made chicken enchilada pasta and tomorrow night I’ll be making coconut lime chicken. Quick review: the chicken enchilada pasta was a bit too hands on to be a new recipe on a weeknight. Now that I’ve done it, no problem, but in hindsight, shoulda saved it for a weekend. And I’m guessing if I didn’t have this stupid stuffed up nose, it would have tasted a helluva lot better too. To me, it was just kind of…meh. It did have a bit of a kick though. I will be trying it during a non-sick time.

reading…reading? What’s that? Seriously though…I always kind of “forget” to read. It sounds awful, I know. I know. But I really just don’t like reading that much to begin with. I do have “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” sitting on the table next to the chair I nurse Reese in each night. Just waiting for an evening I get sick of scrolling thorough Instagram.

listening to the rumbling of a train passing outside my office. And the slow, methodical, droning of my pump. Is it nap time yet?

And totally unrelated to any of this, but cute & sweet nonetheless…a photo of the girls…Rylee was super upset because she realized (too late) that she’d left her blanket at school and wouldn’t be able to get it until the next day. Reese heard her crying and was concerned. I’m convinced she was trying to make her sister feel better.

I’m linking up with my girl Lindsey over at OtandEt for her weekly “Currently” link-up!

Somewhere In The Middle

Mostly Average Accounts of the World's Okayest Mom.