Random Thursday Night Ramblings

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It’s not yet 8:30 and my teeth are brushed, face is washed, my pjs are on and I’m in bed. It’s not that I’m tired and ready for bed. I’m just too tired to do anything productive around the house. Reese is in bed and Andy and Rylee are still at some friends house that we had dinner at tonight so I’m enjoying the quiet with no tv on.

So I figured I’d grab the iPad and tap out a quick post until I was tired or Andy and Ry got home.

Earlier today I got an email from the Tball coordinator for Rylee’s school. This Tuesday is Tball skills assessment at 5:30 PM. They say it should last about an hour. It hit me at that point…we’re officially getting into what I have actively avoided all school year. Organized activities on a weeknight.

Ugh.

I feel like I barely have my shit together well enough on a good night to get the girls home before 6 PM and dinner on the table by 6:30 without getting completely overwhelmed by an amped up and sassy almost 6 year old and/or a whiney 20 month old that only wants to be held. How are we going to add in just one.more.thing. We’ll get it figured out, I’m just not looking forward to the learning curve.

I just realized today that the beginning of April is next week. Which means Easter is about three weeks away. Which means our second annual Easter egg hunt is about 3 weeks away. Last year we stuffed around 500 eggs for kids and adults. I need to start shopping and we need to get to stuffing! I suppose I should also get the evite sent out.

I also just realized today that earlier this month marked seven years of being on our property! What a crazy ride it’s been so far.

This weekend the girls and I are headed to a bridal shop with my sister and some of her other bridal party to pick out dresses for her wedding! We did gown shopping a couple of weeks ago. Fingers crossed Reese cooperates well enough and doesn’t terrorize the entire place.

Gosh it’s hard to come up with things to type out anymore…Andy and Ry still aren’t home, but I’m officially tired. So…happy Friday eve…here’s hoping Reese sleeps past 5 am tomorrow!

I was afraid this would happen…

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I don’t even know where to start with this.

Hai. Hello.

Clearly it’s been a while. And you know what? I’m not really that sad about it. Maybe that’s a sign?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that my new job is pretty dang awesome. I really do love it. But I’m literally glued to my computer/social media all day {no really, I literally have Gunnar glasses – computer glasses for techies} so at the end of the day, I don’t really feel like doing that any more. Plus the whole, having time to blog at night? Ha. HAHAHAHHA. Yea right.

I don’t bring my own computer to work anymore…which is fantastic for my neck & shoulders, but again, kind of inhibits the whole “keeping up on blogging” thing.

So I’m really enjoying my time away from my phone and computer when I’m at home with the fam…ok, total honesty here, maybe not ALL of my time becauseOMGthewhining!

Life is moving right along…let’s see…

Rylee is kicking ace in school. She recently had a reading challenge, Kinders’ goal was 150 minutes in 13 days…Ry blew it out of the water reading over 280 minutes! She lost her second tooth. We’ve signed her up for T-ball. She got her first pedicure.

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Reese is as feisty as ever. She’s saying more and more words. She’s still all about the ear tugging when she’s tired but she hates snuggling/rocking at bedtime. She’s starting to show interest in potty training {WOOT!}. And she still out-eats her big sister most nights.

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Andy is officially on spring break starting today! The guy totally deserves a break but he’ll be busy with all the springtime property work like pruning, wood splitting, mowing, working on the chicken coop, etc etc etc. When he’s not working outside, he’s raging war against the random ants that have decided to show up and various places in our house.

The sun has been shining and the longer nights means we’ve been spending more time outside. Also known as: country living perfection.

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And so the cycle goes.

To quote the Lego movie… everything is awesome!

Heads up though? No promises I’ll be back on any consistent basis.

Currently…Reese at 18 Months

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Reesie-bug, last weekend you turned 18 months old. One and a half years you’ve been with our family now. Life is crazy, but that’s status quo these days and you fit right in. In the vein of “life is crazy” your 18 month well-check isn’t for over a month yet. So, instead of that typical update, which I may still do, I thought it’d be fun to do a snap-shot of where you’re at right now.
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appreciating pretty much everything. You are so polite…you tell people thank you all the time…especially at meal time when you’re given a bite of something you really love…like a chip. You also say bless you, excuse you and you even say “excuse me” when you burp.

reading the same books over and over again. Right now your two favorites are Eric Carl’s “From Head to Toe” and a book called “I’m a Frog” that’s about a pig that pretends to be a frog and her elephant friend that’s not ok with it.
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listening only when you feel like it. You’ve mastered selective hearing and you aren’t even two yet. Bravo? Though there are times you surprise me with choosing to listen…like the other day when I was dropping you off at daycare and we happened to be in the big kid room and you ran over to the lego table and dug right in. I made some comment to you about “You know you’re not supposed to be playing with those” and I figured I’d be ignored. Instead you put the legos back in the tubs and ran over to me with a huge smile on your face.
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tasting all of the things. You love almost everything we put in front of you…most recently cous cous. And you even ate some red pepper last night. Some of your favorites are bananas, spaghetti and of course, TACO TUESDAY! When it comes to things you won’t eat, it’s a pretty short list that’s topped off with mac-n-cheese…you crazy kid.
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learning at a rate that does not compute with my brain.

noticing EVERYTHING. You are so observant. And you are such a little mimicker. You want to do everything your sister does.
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making all sorts of noises. You’ve become a babble-extraordinnaire and I love listening to you and having a “conversation” with you.

watching too much TV. Being a second child is funny that way. When you wake up in the morning you go get the remote and hand it to whomever you think will turn on cartoons for you. You especially love Wild Kratts and Curious George.

organizing a revolution…I’m sure of it. One that starts with waking up every morning at 5:20 a.m., yelling “MAMA!” in the car until I hold your hand and ends with your mother drinking copious amounts of wine or whiskey every night. Just kidding…I don’t drink every night. What your next step in this war is, I’m unsure, but I know all will be revealed soon…you’re just wearing me down.
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loving in no particular order: food, Dante, your sister, your binkie, cuddling, brushing your teeth, playing with our ears, ripping toilet paper into tiny pieces and trying to put them in the toilet by sticking them between my legs while I’m peeing and so much more.
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embracing anyone who will accept a hug. Despite your fierce nature, you are a cuddle bug and you love “giving loves”. You’re an excellent hug giver and can brighten anyone’s day with just one squeeze.

daring. That’s it. You are so daring. You have no fear, it seems. From climbing to “jumping” there’s nothing you aren’t willing to try. I hope you never lose that spirit.

Little girl, you are fierce. The twinkle in your eye and the crinkle of your nose leaves me constantly wondering what’s going on in that brain of yours.
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I know I’ve said it before, but you bring so much joy to our family.

I love you baby girl.

xoxo,
Mama

Do Not Disturb

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Between my last day at Cosmos and my first day at my new job I had 12 days off…well, 11 if you count the one day I went back into Cosmos to help with “orientation” for my replacement. A few things to note about my time off…a) I’ve never taken time off over the holidays. b) I’ve never taken time off between jobs…last time I left a job for another my last day was on a Friday and I started the new gig on Monday. c) Andy & I have never had more than a long weekend off together, not counting my maternity leave. and finally d) I’ve never had that much time off. Period.

I’m not going to lie, I was really looking forward to the time off. Not only because I wasn’t going to be stressing about work or stressing about the holidays, but because I was truly, genuinely excited to spend so much time with my family at home.

There were many times over the course of those 12 days where I found myself leaving my phone in another room…sometimes hours at a time. Not caring one bit that I was disconnected. At times, I even put my phone on Do Not Disturb. It was so amazing to step away, completely guilt free.

It ended up working out where a few days over my time off the girls either went to daycare or spent a day with their grandparents. We took that time together to work on projects around the house and property. We made major progress on our chicken coop. When some people heard that’s how we were going to spend our time as “just us” they joked about how boring and practical we were. In reality, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do. Before we had kids, we used to work on projects, both big and small, all the time. We would spend hours outside. It’s something we loved to do and often talk about how we look forward to being able to do those things again when the girls are older and a bit more independent.

I could feel the stress melting away. I could feel myself relaxing. We spent time as a family. We spent time with friends. We laughed a lot. We prepped for the holidays. We knocked a bunch of projects off of the ever-growing to-do list. We organized. We purged. We cleaned. Together.

I ended my vacation with a clean and organized house, completely revived and ready to take on a new year and a new adventure.

My new job comes with 5 weeks of paid time off to use over the next year. I’m already looking forward to using some of that time just like I did.