Category Archives: growing up

In the Blink of an Eye

Holy moly. You hit “post” about a cute little Father’s Day story on a Monday. Then you blink and it’s almost a week later.

How did that even happen!?

This last week was spent soaking up all the family time I could get before my handsome, well deserving husband jetted off for the fishing trip of a lifetime.

Now I’m attempting to wrangle a toddler solo. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I have so much admiration for mamas, or any parent for that matter, that does it on their own.

Oh what’s that? You want to know more about those adorable little photos you already peeked on? Well, a couple of months ago I won my very first giveaway! A photo session with Marissa from Marissa Lynn Photography. After two previous attempts at booking an outdoor photo session, the crazy Oregon weather finally decided to cooperate and the result was cute that would kill you if you would have witnessed it first hand. I stole err…borrowed these two shots from the “teasers” she posted on her facebook page.

I am already in love and cannot wait to see the rest of them!

I can do this… I think I can do this… Can I do this?

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“Mommy, I have a question.” she says to me as we settle down in her room for the night. She’s had a bath, has fresh PJ’s on and has her head lying on her little sheep pillow.

“Ok, Ry, shoot.” I respond with a smile and a bit of a chuckle. {where does this kid come up with this stuff!?}

She sits up on her knees, looks me square in the eyes and says “So, how was your day?”

I pause for a quick second and actually think about it. I tell her I had a great day and ask her if she knows what my favorite part of it was.

“No, Mommy, what was your favorite?”

“My favorite part of my day was the special night we had tonight. We played ball outside… We laughed a lot… We ate ice cream… We read books… We had fun tonight, didn’t we?”

She smiles and says “yea…” lays her head down on the pillow then taps the bed right next to her and says “One more minute…”

As I lay there I think, I can totally do this.

This time next week Andy will be on his way to Alaska for his EPIC Alaskan Fishing trip with his dad and best friend. So while he’s off traveling the great state of AK for an adventure of a lifetime, I will be playing the single mom role.

With nights like last night it’s easy to think, “pshhh, this will be nuthin’!”

But then…I think back to Saturday. Oh how easily it all comes back to me.

The crying.
The screaming.
The hitting.
The timeouts.
More crying & screaming.
The anger.
The frustration.

The overwhelming feeling that I’m an awful mother who can’t even handle her own child.

Can I really do this? By myself? For 12 whole days?

Last night was great. Maybe it’s all mental? I was “ready” to have a fun night with just Rylee and me. Maybe it was the promise of ice cream after dinner?

By no means am I any sort of expert in the way of parenting, but here’s what I do know:

I am going to go into next week with a smile on my face and a freezer full of ice cream.

It’s Story Time

Because I Feel Like I should Blog: On Joy and some other stuff

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I have known for a long time just how blessed I am with Rylee. She was such an easy baby. And she is literally the most well behaved 3 year old I know. She says please and thank you, without being prompted. She actually listens to directions. She eats her vegetables. She’s happy and healthy.

Sure we have our struggles, but really, what 3 year old does not challenge. She’s learning her boundaries. Those times, while frustrating, are few and far between.

Long story short…Rylee is such a joy to have in our lives. My heart explodes when I think about the love she has brought into our family. Her smile is contagious. Her laugh, infectious. Her heart is generous and kind and open.

I love this little girl so much that there’s times when I cannot even fathom having enough love in my heart for another little. Then there’s times where I see her with babies and I cannot wait to see the love she will have for a little sibling.

There’s times I am literally moved to tears when watching her grow and develop and learn new things. So many times I don’t have the words. All I can do is smile and beam with pride.

I can’t help but think we’re raising her right.

These are some of the photos I snagged on my phone over the weekend. Andy took the tractor out to do some field mowing for some people so Rylee and I had a lot of time to spend together… just us girls. The sun shined all weekend so we spent a lot of time outside.

Rylee’s Stellar Headband Placement // Andy loading up the tractor

63 Degrees at 9 AM on Saturday! // Rylee made me lunch

First water fight of the Summer // Relaxing as a family after a busy weekend

__________

In other news: you can see my day-to-day updates on my 30 Day Shred Challenge here. You can watch my progress on my 31 Days to Clean here. Since they are just “pages” within the blog, they do not show up in reader when I do update them. Mostly every day.

And lastly? Can you spare a couple of clicks for me? Pretty please? They just reset the listings…

Thanks for pointing that one out, Ry!

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If you have a child that’s talking, you’ll know what I mean. If you don’t, trust me…you will.

I’m amazed how kids pick up on things and how, even though they might not know what they are saying, they have impeccable timing. Rylee has been…uhhh…impressing us with this gift of toddlerhood quite a bit lately. These moments are keeping us on our toes and laughing. These moments always seem to be at the expense of someone else…ok, me. She has a knack for pointing out our imperfections in such an innocent way. These ones are pretty mild, but I’m sure as she gets older we’ll be in store for lots more laughs.

There’s never a bad time to laugh so I thought I’d share a few of these moments…

For Rylee’s Birthday, her actual birthday, I picked up one of those giant pieces of cake for the three of us to share after our gourmet taco dinner. Since it wasn’t an actual whole cake, I just put it on a plate, then stuck some candles in it. Then I got us our own bowls for ice cream. So, as we were munching on our cake and ice cream…I had loaded up my fork with a bite of both cake and ice cream. As I ws bringing it up to my mouth Rylee looks at me, puts her spoon down, and goes, “Uhhh…really mommy? Really?!”

Ouch kid.

I may or may not have this really bad habit of never putting away my clothes. Newsflash: there’s not maybe about it. It’s awful really. I will literally go weeks to even a couple of months before I will actually put my clothes away. Anything that has to be hung up will just be draped over the chair next to my bed. Last night, Andy was in so much pain he pretty much passed out after he put Ry to bed. Since I wasn’t tired, and since I’m starting the 31 Days to Clean project, I figured it’d be a good time to actually put my clothes away. This morning, Ry ended up in our room like she does every morning. As her and I were getting out of bed, she looked over at the empty chair, and with a big {GASP!} “What happened to all your clothes Mommy!?”

Again…ouch kid.

Last week Rylee was doing her business. I was in there, um, supervising? While I was in there I let out a big burp. A few seconds after that, I may have let one go from the other end. Ry looked up at me and gasped, then giggled and pointed out (loud enough that Daddy started laughing from the kitchen) “Mommy! You just burped out of your mouth and tooted out of your bum!”

Thanks for that on Ry! {I’m just glad we were at home!}

A couple of months ago, Rylee and I decided to hit up our local library for the first time. While we were there she decided she had to go to the bathroom. So, we made our way to the restroom. As we walked in, we also walked into a brick wall of stank. Like, I had to shake my head, stank. It didn’t take long for Rylee to figure it out…with a loud {SNIFF.} {SNIFF!} “Mommy I smell something!!” {SNIFF!} “I smell POOP!”

I about fell over…luckily there was nobody else in there. I might have died right then and there.

I mean really…what else can we do besides laugh? And if we can’t laugh at ourselves, well, I don’t actually know what, but with a toddler, you have to keep a sense of humor. Am I right or am I right?

Ok, spill it…I want to hear some of your stories like this. I know I can’t be the only one!

Somewhere In The Middle

Mostly Average Accounts of the World's Okayest Mom.