Category Archives: montser

Five.

Leave a reply

Where do I begin…5 is simultaneously blowing my mind and making me want to cry.

Five is full of big, huge monumental things…not only for the little 5 year old, but also the parents.

Five brings kindergarten. And new friends. And packing a lunch every day.

Five brings out the wacky and the sweet.

Five is booster seats and real seat belts.

Five brings out the legit independence…as in “Go brush your teeth” and know it actually gets done kind of independence and not just “I DO IT MYSELF” kind of independence.

Five lets the sense of humor shine.

Five brings out the little white lies that leave you wondering where they learned how to do that so well.

Five brings out the awareness of…certain things…and only wanting to tell mom those things and not dad.

Five brings the sass like you never thought possible…I fear the teenage years that lie ahead.

Five brings some impressive and scary understanding of complex things.

And as of last night? Five brings the first visit from tooth fairy…

20131022-124653.jpg

XXXXX

Miss Rylee Vivian…five is your jam.

You are witty and funny and at times you say things that are years beyond you and it cracks me up to hear such a little body say something like, “well ya know…like the old saying goes…”

You are silly and have a wonderful imagination. You are thoughtful and caring and selfless.

Hear me right now, I love the person you are becoming. You are perfect. You are smart. You are beautiful. And I hope you never change.

xoxo,
Mama

Reese’s One Year Photos…3 months later

2 Replies

So, after picking up Reese’s “school pictures” when I dropped her off at daycare this morning {and laughing my arse off because they are epically bad}, I  decided to pull the flash drive out of my bag that has all the pictures from Reese’s “One Year” Photo Shoot we had done…you know, back at the end of July. I’ve only looked at them a couple of times. Andy hasn’t even seen them. Considering those two things, I clearly haven’t shared them on the blog either. Until now, of course.

 EYES!!!rice003That smirk…it is so…Reese.  2013-07-271 Of course we had to get a few of the girls together…2013-07-272And of course we had to snap a few of my sweet little ham bone… 2013-07-273 This girl…such a skeptic…2013-07-274 I sure do love these girls…2013-07-275And one with the binkie…because obvious things are obvious.rice053

Confession: I didn’t really love them the first time I looked at them. I was bummed we couldn’t get her to smile in a single picture. But after looking at them again, I realize this is Reese to a T. These are her “looks” and I’m so glad we were able to capture them. AND THOSE EYES! Now? I can’t stop looking at them.

P.S. A post about the school photos will be coming!

P.P.S. All photos by Kristen Moss Photography.

The State of the State

1 Reply

Within the last 20 minutes, I just finished up my first post car accident 90-minute massage. I’ve got a little bit of time before I need to go get the girls, but not enough time to head back to the office so I’ve found myself sitting in Starbucks sipping on my beloved iced coffee and water…lots and lots of water.

I’ve been somewhat slacking in the blog department lately and have plans to get back into it {broken record, I know} but I feel like we’ve missed some things along the way, so I figured I’d fill the 20-30 minutes of free time I have here with a general life overview. A “state of the state” if you will.

Reese
Whoa buddy, this girl. She is…fierce. That is the best word to describe her. She lives life…big. She has big ideas and big curiosity and big opinions and a big set of lungs. And a big stomach…homegirl is always hungry. She is in to everything she shouldn’t be. She loves to “help”. She’s starting to “talk” more and more. Her latest word is “cracker” and her latest phrase is “bless you”. She’s a little stinker, but she continues to bring so much joy to our family and I love her so.

Rylee
Kindergarten has been good to this girl so far. She’s reading more and more. She’s continually blowing my mind with things she knows and how easily she’s picking up new concepts. She’s learning to tell time. She gets “optional” homework sent home in her Tuesday folder every week. {for the record, it’s not optional in our house} Just last week her teacher included extra “challenge homework”…with things like greater than/less than as well as “which digit is in the ones place”. I thought, no way this is going to end well. Ry? NAILED IT. She is smart beyond smart. We’re talking about starting gymnastics. She’s getting into the stage of girlhood where she wants to listen to the same song over and over and over again and learn every single word. Then of course sing and dance along. Currently her song is Taylor Swift’s “I knew you were trouble”. Not gonna lie, I am totally loving this stage so far.

Andy
Ha, not much to report here. The beginning of the school year crazyness seems to be easing up a bit {knock on wood}. He’s still working on wrapping up some of the big outside projects on the property in time for winter. Last weekend he and my dad did their first wood cutting trip of the season.

Katherine
Yep…I’m still plugging away. Work is work. My back/neck have been jacked since the car accident so the massage I just had was heavenly. I’m apparently at a point in my life where playdates at Target are totally my idea of fun…and I’m 1 million percent ok with that. I’m also at a point in my life where I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t have time for everything. I didn’t can a single thing this year. Didn’t even pick a single pear off of our pear tree. On one hand, I hate the fact that I’m not making the time for those things, but on the other hand, I have my sanity about me and I’m not trying to squeeze in a bajillion things into two days off while wrangling a couple of kids. Life is life and my priorities have been set and I’m not wasting energy on peripheral things.

The Blog
I wish it wasn’t so neglected, it’s true, but there are so many other things that need to take priority these days. I’ve recently stopped blogging over at Liberating Working Moms. It was a bittersweet decision, but definitely the right one for me. I’ve also taken the blog off of the “Top Baby Blogs” directory. I don’t know that I ever thought this blog would “make it big” {whatever that means} but I’m super happy with where it’s at, I don’t know the last time I checked my stats. I do love blogging, I do it for fun and I do it for my kids to look back at someday and don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

20131009-165604.jpg

Fall is always a funny time of year for me. It starts out hectic with the beginning of a new school year then always seems to settle nicely into a season of evenings spent by the fire and reflection and relaxation.

Life is life. Kids are kids. Work is work. Love is love.

And that, my friends, is the state of the state.

When no one is watching…

4 Replies

Miss Rylee,

There are moments as a parent that will stop you in your tracks. Last weekend was one of those moments for me.

Ten, twenty, even thirty years from now you may not remember that day, but I will.

Your dad, sister, you and I piled in the car and headed over to Bend for Cousin Connor’s super hero birthday party. It was a great day.20130927-093615.jpg

Part of the party was a “super hero training course” where you had various obstacles to complete around their backyard. While all the kids were running around having a good time a “super villain” came out and dropped “bombs” on you guys. They were balloons and you had to run around and pop them as fast as possible to “save the city”. Everyone was having lots of fun running around making the “bombs” blow up.

There was a boy there. He was bigger than you. He was louder than you. He knew more of the other kids than you did.

You both went for the same balloon. You beat him to it. You popped it. You giggled in delight. He was mad. He threw himself on the ground and started crying, frustrated that you beat him to the balloon and that he didn’t get to pop it. You noticed him, but seemed to move on to grab the next bomb that was being dropped. You were having so much fun.

That’s when something extraordinary happened.

Instead of grabbing the next balloon, one of the last ones, and popping it, you rushed to grab it and you immediately ran over to that boy, who was still lying on the ground, and handed it to him.

When your dad was telling me this story, it was at this point that my heart stopped. I may have got a tiny bit teary eyed.

The truest test of one’s character is how they act when they think no one is watching.

Well, your dad saw this whole thing take place. You had no idea he was watching your every move, you were just doing what you thought was the right thing to do. As soon as it happened he called you over to him. He hugged you as tight as he could, kissed you on the top of your head and told you how proud of you we are.

You smiled at him and said thanks. Then ran back to the obstacle course to keep playing.

From the time you took it upon yourself to thank soldiers sitting in a restaurant for their service, now to this, I am continually amazed by your kind heart and your thoughtful, gentle nature.

You really are a super hero.

I am so proud of the little lady you are becoming.

I love you,

Mama

 

New School Year Transitions

4 Replies

I know what you’re thinking…ugh, here she goes again…complaining about back to school.

And I’d like to tell you you’re wrong. But you’re not. You’re 100% right.

I don’t know what it is about this year, but I swear this is the worst year yet for the back to school transition. I’m having a tough time with it. Not in the “oh my baby is just starting kindergarten, she’s getting so big, where does time go, I think I’ll cry” kind of way. But more of the “holy crap how is it already 6 PM and we are just getting home and Reese only wants to be held and holy crap she’s tired and how am I going to make dinner like this and what time is Andy going to be home” kind of way.

I end every night completely exhausted and I wake up the next morning the same way.

IMG_5791

Now we’re talking about signing Rylee up for soccer. Can I tell you a secret? I have purposefully avoided any kind of organized group activity thus far. No gymnastics. No dance. Nothing. Hardly even an official play date with friends. Not because I don’t want my girls to join organized activities, but because with all that we juggle as full-time-plus working parents and property owners, I couldn’t imagine willingly adding one.more.thing. into the mix.

But here we are.

When the flyer about soccer sign-ups was sent home with Rylee last week, I asked her about it. She said she didn’t want to play. I silently cheered and let out a sigh of relief.

But is that really it? No. It’s not.  At this point am I doing her a disservice by just accepting her meh “no” and moving on? All because I selfishly don’t want to have to figure out how soccer practices during the week and weekend games will fit into our already hectic lives? How is she going to know whether or not soccer is her thing if she never even tries it.

{Personally, I don’t think soccer will be her thing. She’s very athletic, and quite quick actually, but not particularly aggressive. I think volleyball or softball or even track will be more her style, but I suppose only time will tell.}

So I’ve made a couple of phone calls. First we’re going to see if her after school care  place is going to put together a team. They did it last year and the kids practice in the after-school hours instead of later in the evening. Of course we’d still have to fit in weekend games, but that’s much more doable. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll likely sign her up for soccer at her elementary school. That will mean evening practices and quite a little more schedule juggling.

Am I ready for all of this? No. Not in the least bit. But if it’s what’s best for Rylee and what she wants, then I guess we’ll make it work.

Looking ahead to our future? I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like once both girls are in school.

I swear I’ve heard from somewhere that it gets easier. So…when exactly is that?