Dog...a man's best friend?

       When Keegan and I were engaged, we agreed that every family needs a dog and if we were starting our own family, we needed one too. As it would happen, my mom's yellow lab Goldie (RIP,) had a sweet litter of puppies about 8 weeks before our wedding. I chose my favorite from the litter and we named her Dixie. Dixie moved out to TX with us, and she completed our little family, (for the moment.) Those first few months in TX were kind of lonely for me. I had just moved half way across the country, I didn't know anyone yet, and Keegan was gone working a lot. Needless to say I really grew fond of Dixie. She was my constant companion and she brought me a lot of comfort, especially when Keegan was gone, and then when he deployed. She was also a royal pain in the butt... house training her, her chewing on things, her yanking free of her leash and chasing people down in the park, etc....but, we loved her nonetheless and we knew one day the shenanigans of puppy-hood would pass. (This story is getting a bit lengthy as they usually do when I try to tell a story, so I'll try to cut to the chase.) Keegan deployed, and Dixie and I moved back home to my parent's house in FL for the time. When Keegan was injured in Iraq and we unexpectedly moved back to TX, Dixie remained at my parent's home in FL until we were able to get her back. My parents live out in the woods on 5 acres, so Dixie grew accustomed to wandering, chasing cows, killing chickens, rolling in dead animals...you know, "dog things." When Dixie finally rejoined our family more than a year later, she was not thrilled about becoming a house dog again. She started acting depressed and she gained a lot of weight. Even though we walk her frequently, she still just doesn't get the exercise she needs. Lately she's been jumping the fence every single time I let her out into the back yard. She pretty much just roams the neighborhood looking for action, and she always comes back and sleeps on the doorstep when she's done, waiting for me to let her in. Our neighborhood has a strict leash policy though, so neighbors keep bringing her home, and apparently some have even called animal control. Animal control has returned her 3 times, (she's microchipped so they can get our address by scanning her.) We decided to put a stake in the ground outside and put her on a chain inside the fence. This worked for a little while until she realized she could jump the fence still attached to the chain, and then wriggle free of her collar once she was on the other side. We can't leave her inside the house because she gets on the furniture, (leaving dog hair EVERYwhere) and knocks over the trash and spreads it through the house. We've tried leaving her in the garage when we leave but she knocks things over and chews things up. I have been at my wits end lately with her! the other day she had escaped from the back yard again. I had just gotten Raleigh to sleep, which meant if I was lucky, I'd have 45 minutes to an hour before Liam woke up from his nap. No sooner were Raleigh's eyes tightly shut, than my doorbell rang. It was a neighbor bringing Dixie home. Dixie ran past my legs into the house and immediately I was hit with the most awful smell. Dixie had found some sort of dead animal in the woods and had rolled in it....ugh! My next hour was spent bathing her in the back yard with the hose, then taking a shower myself to get the grossness off me. Just as I was finishing up my shower, both kids woke up. I was so livid. Dixie had spoiled my only free moment of the entire day! The next day she managed to get out yet again, and animal control brought her back saying that the next time they did, we'd have to pay a fine to get her back. I'm so lost on what to do! I know she's acting out because she doesn't get enough attention and exercise, but I also am already spread too thin and I have no extra time to do anything extra with her. Keegan said we should get her another dog for a companion, but I refuse. It may work, but if it doesn't we'd be stuck with 2 dogs and twice the trouble...
         

(Here's a picture of Keegan, Dixie, & I - Summer 2007.)

    So today I was headed out for a walk with the kids in the double stroller. It's really hard to walk Dixie when I'm by myself pushing the stroller, because it's so heavy I need both hands to push, and Dixie yanks and tugs at the leash the whole time. But I knew she needed the exercise, so I was going to find a way to take her. I got the genius not-so-smart idea to tie Dixie's leash to  the stroller handle, that way I could push the stroller and she could tag along beside it. The first 3/4 of our 2 mile walk was a huge pain. Dixie wouldn't stop pulling, then she'd stop to sniff and we get jerked to a stop. Then she'd get all up in the stroller wheels and get her paws ran over. Ugh! About a quarter mile from our house, I saw some dandelions a few feet off the sidewalk. I knew Liam would love to have to one to blow the seeds off of, so I decided to grab him one. For a fleeting moment I thought "I really shouldn't let go of this stroller with Dixie tied to it," but, as usual I ignored common sense and let go of the stroller. I stepped 3 feet away to grab some dandelions, and as I stood up with the dandelions, I saw Dixie start to walk away out from the side of the stroller As soon as I started to utter the words "Dixie, no!" I watched in horror as she took off, and in doing so pulled the stroller with my most prized posessions in it, right over onto it's side. Liam was able to react and brace the fall with his arm, but my poor helpless five month old Raleigh was flung forward and her head crashed into the sidewalk. I was paralyzed with fear for an instant, then I began shaking uncontrollably. Both kids were screaming. I threw the stroller back upright and picked Raleigh up. Her forehead was bleeding and she was screaming so loud I couldn't even hear Liam crying. :( I rocked Raleigh there close to my chest trying to get her to calm down. I was shaking so hard and crying for my children. After a few moments Raleigh's cries eased and I was able to give Liam a once over, he was okay, just a bump on the head and a scrape on the arm. I was able to get Raleigh to stop crying, and amazingly enough she actually started grinning at me. (God's sense of humor maybe?) I was still panicky though, and I was trying to remember if it was dilated eyes, or not dilated eyes that was a sign of a concussion? Then I kept telling myself that if she was smiling and cooing something must be wrong with her! Maybe she was delirious? I put her back down into the stroller and began heading back to the house. (It was only because I was in such close proximity to so many homes that I did not beat the living tar out of Dixie. The last thing I needed was to be reported for animal abuse.) As we walked I called my mom and in panic told her what happened, seeking advice on whether or not I should take Raleigh to the ER to have her checked. Even though she seemed okay once I calmed her down, I was still concerned, because often with trauma to the head, you can't see the seriousness of it til later. I also talked to Keegan, and we agreed to call the advice nurse. I got home and got the kids inside, put a cartoon on for Liam, and washed Raleigh's forehead with a cool rag. Then, still shaking, I spent the next 45 minutes on hold with the ER advice nurse. She went through an entire list of questions to determine the seriousness of Raleigh's imjury, and in the end she said Raleigh is probably just fine, she'll just have the pain of the scrape to deal with. She said to wake her up every 4 hours throughout the night to make sure she wakes up, (no problemo there, the kid wakes up every 3 hours as it is!) I was relieved to get some reassurance from the nurse, but I have kept that tight, stressed-out feeling in my chest all night. It's definitely not the best way to start out a week of Keegan being gone again. Thankfully Raleigh went on to have a perfectly normal evening, just with a big swollen red forehead. Kid's are so resilient I swear! I'm so thankful that I had her buckled in so tightly, I cannot imagine how much worse she would've been had I not added the shoulder straps! I learned once already that babies MUST be strapped in at all times. (Yes, I also threw Liam out of his stroller at an airport when he was 4 months old. Parent of the year right here, I'm telling ya!)

                      Now back to the issue of Dixie....I understand that this can not realistically be blamed on Dixie. It was my bad judgement for tying an 80 lb dog to a stroller. (Why I am even admitting this kind of foolish decision to you all, I really don't know....so you can learn from my mistake maybe?) However considering I've already been at my wits end with that dog, this was like, the final straw. I don't know what to do with her. We love her very much, Liam loves her, she's SO great with him! But I just don't feel like she gets what she needs here, and I don't know what to do. *Sigh* There you have it folks, my dog dilemma and the story of Raleigh's first major boo-boo. Now please comment here with the magical solution to my predicament. Please and thank you.

Raleigh proudly showing off her first big boo-boo.

   

Way too easy pumpkin cupcakes!

                  If you're in mood for something fall-ish & sweet, this is the perfect recipe! I called them way-too-easy pumpkin cupcakes, because anything that tastes this good and is this easy to make should be a crime. I wont take credit for the recipe. This time last year I found a recipe for chocolate pumpkin cupcakes and it was basically this recipe plus chocolate chips and without the cream cheese icing. I made them with the chocolate chips but was not a fan, I thought cream cheese icing would suit them much better. So I simply made them again omitting the chips and adding cream cheese icing on top. Voila! Seriously, you can not mess this recipe up, and they are delicious.

cupcakes

1 box of Duncan Hines spice cake mix
1 can pumpkin


Mix the dry cake mix and 1 entire can of pumpkin in a bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. The consistency will be thicker than cake batter, but thinner than peanut butter. Spoon into baking cups. (I like to spray my baking cups with pam spray first.) Bake at 350 for around 25 minutes, or until a toothpick come out clean. Wait til cool, then spread with icing.

cream cheese icing


1 8oz package of cream cheese (room temp.)
1/2 cup butter (room temp.)
2 teaspoons vanilla
4-6 cups powdered sugar.


Use an electric mixer to cream the butter, cream cheese, & vanilla until smooth. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar until you get your desired consistency. The amount of sugar is flexible depending on how stiff you like the icing. I tend to like it to be a little creamier, so I put less sugar. I also like to leave it on the counter at room temperature until I spread it on my cupcakes because it spreads more easily and smoothly. Eat and enjoy!

I do not recommend making these unless you have people to help you eat them! I made a batch and took plates to all my neighbors. Then I still had so much cream cheese icing left I made a second batch for my husband to take to his soldiers at work. (Hopefully I can hold off on eating them til he can deliver them.) Also, this will not make the full 24 cupcakes like a cake mix usually does. I was able to get 15-18 per batch.

Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix and 1 can pumpkin. So easy!

The cutest little baking buddy ever!

What would a picture of a pumpkin cupcake be without an actual pumpkin in it?

It's the little things...

                As I previously mentioned, part of the purpose of this blog is to keep track of the cute little things my kids do from day to day. I am ashamed to say I have yet to write a single word in Liam's baby book, and Raleigh doesn't even have one! *Hangs head in shame.* I've always believed that I'd remember all the cute little milestones and quirky things they do without writing them down, but in case you didn't already know, let me be the first to tell you, THIS DOESN'T WORK! Sometimes I forget things by the end of the very day they happened. For instance, Liam will do some random cute little move or have a funny reaction to something, and I make a mental note to tell Keegan about it when he gets home from work....yeah...that never works so well. I have about 50,000 mental post-it notes floating around in my head as if a gust of wind just blew them off my mental clipboard. The faster I chase them down, the further away the wind blows them. (Then I just look like an idiot running around through the parking lot chasing post-it notes.) Did you get that mental picture? It's not cute at all, I feel bad for losing the notes and no one will ever know what they said! Now this blog can serve as my giant virtual post-it note. I'm going to try to record things the kids did that day that amused me, charmed me, made me laugh, made me cry, made me want to pull my hair out, (hey, when they get older I gotta save some stuff to hold over their heads.)
     
                I feel like I should warn you, when it comes time for me to share these types of stories, I'm sure they will be far less amusing & cute to you random readers. After all, they are my children and I think everything most things they do are precious anyways. I'm probably always going to want to brag on them and dote on them and insist that no child will ever be as cute/precocious/smart as my own. This being said, I know all of you will more than likely feel that way about your own children, and you may find yourself rolling your eyes when I post things that seem super lame to you. Just keep in mind though, that one day you will find yourself going on about that less-than spectacular-but nevertheless-cute thing your kid did, and you too will realize you're guilty of looking through your "mom lenses." I, for one, wear my mom lenses proudly and will always be willing to tell you all the good things about my kids, you just have to ask. :D (I'm also willing to share with you about the moments when my mom lenses are crooked and I want to ship my kids to Timbuktu, but I think yesterdays post covered that pretty well.)

              Well, on to my cute Liam moment of the day....I already am feeling a bit guilty recording this little gem, as I am realizing it is the first little quirky thing he's done that I've ever written down and he's TWO! Oh well, all I can do is move forward from here.

             Yesterday at some point bewteen morning and naptime, Liam, Raleigh, and I headed upstairs to put away some clothes in the bedrooms. I laid Raleigh down in her bassinet in our room, (more on that later,) and Liam and I went in her room to hang some things up. Well we got a bit distracted and instead it turned into a super cute and fun game of "putting mommy to bed." We have a twin bed with a trundle that we are keeping in Raleigh's room so that when company comes we always have an extra sleeping surface in addition to the couch. I'm pretty sure there aren't many things more enticing to a two year old than a nicely made up bed for jumping on. So, you can guess what Liam was doing. He stopped jumping and laid himself out on the bed, head on the pillow, and squeezed his eyes shut really tight, so I played along. "Okay, if you're going to sleep, I'm going bye-bye!" and I pretended to leave and shut the door. He jumped up out of the bed and then turned around and patted the pillow saying "Mama!" (He wanted me to lay down.) So I laid down in the bed and said something along the lines of "Okay mama's going to sleep!" He burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter and ran to the door, saying "bah bah" (bye bye) as he left. I called out "WAIT! You need to tuck me in!" So he bursts into laughter again and runs back to the bed and pulls the blanket up over me. Of course I'm being super dramatic, (what else is new?) and I snuggle all down and mumble about it being cozy etc. Liam once again bursts into laughter and heads for the door saying "Bah bah!" Just when he had the door almost closed I yelled, "WAIT! You didn't kiss me goodnight!" So he runs back over to me, and gives me a big goodnight kiss in between the giggle fits. I go on about how I can finally fall to sleep now that I have my kiss, and he heads for the door telling me bye bye, and just when he's about to close it, he pauses. At this point he knows I'm going to ask for something else, so I yell, "WAIT! You didn't read me a story!" He was ready and waiting for it this time, so he burst into his fit of laughter right on cue since he had been anticipating it. (Kids anticipating laughter like that is the best!!!) So anyways he disappears into the hall and comes back a moment later with a book from his bedroom and brings it to me in the bed laughing. This went on for a few more minutes. He was absolutely hysterical over the idea of putting his mom to bed, and I'm sure the drama I added in was enough to send even a Buckingham Palace guard into hysterics, (mainly because I look like a total idiot.) This game lasted for a total of about 5 minutes until all at once Liam was no longer amused by it and we moved on with our day. Like I said, that was probably boring to most other people, but it's these little fun moments with my toddler that make my day so much fun. I may be stressed, but it's not without tons of laughter and fun right along with it.

                 There...it feels good to have recorded that. It's like a sigh of relief. I know as soon as I hit "publish" this little memory of mine will be forever cataloged somewhere where I can always reflect on it. (Or until the internet crashes.) If I had only known how good this had felt I would've started a long time ago! If you have kids and you're reading, I encourage to to write down the little things! Of course it's fun to remember their first tooth and the day they crawled, etc. But I know when I look back on my life, I'd rather remember the fun moments, the 30 seconds you caught them doing something super sweet or mischevious, the giggles over nonsense, & the things they only do when they're two and have no inhibitions. These are the things I want to remember. I hope I can continue to remember things like this and remember to write them down. One day it would be really fun to create a book of the fun moments. <3

                   Oh and about Raleigh in her bassinet....she was really tired when I put her in there. In fact I had expected to lay her down just for her to start crying as soon as I did, and I knew as soon as I put the clothes away I was going to have to put her to sleep. She's still totally dependent on being "put" to sleep, she's not much of a 'fall asleep drowsy' kind of baby. So when we headed to her room to put clothes away I was shocked to hear her just happily cooing at herself. Liam and I played for a while in her room and then in his room and I could still hear her talking to herself in our room. I'm a firm believer in the phrase, "If it aint broke, don't fix it." So I just kept waiting to see when she'd summon for me. Then all of the sudden I realized it was quiet in our room. With a toddler, silence is almost NEVER a good thing, so my first instinct is to be nervous... but upon entering my bedroom, I found her sound asleep in her bassinet. What a sweet sight! Not only did she look absolutely precious, but this is such a good step towards better sleep habits! She is used to being swaddled for sleeping, and I'm trying to wean her from that, so I was so pleased to see that she had fallen asleep completely free armed and on her own. Of course it was picture worthy so I trudged downstairs to retrieve my camera and came back to get a few shots. I really thought this cool moment was going to be short lived, but Liam and I headed downstairs anyways. We went out in the front yard for a while so I could hang up some fall decorations. About 45 minutes later when I was putting Liam down for his nap, Raleigh woke up. (My kids have a secret alliance in which their goal is to never both be sleeping at the same time.) Anyways, it was a cool little moment for her me that day. I hope it's the first of many more just like it! Here's a picture of Raleigh sleeping like a champ!

I hope you all enjoyed this and only had to roll your eyes at me once or twice. 

Don't pray for patience.

         Every night when I pray for Liam, I always ask God for patience with him each day, to help me be a better mom. Well, you know what they say...if you pray for patience, God will give you opportunities to be patient in. What could be more trying on one's patience than a grumpy, bored, two year old who has trouble communicating his needs? (I'm sure there's something more trying, but this is my current struggle!) One night last week I found myself at the end of a long day with Liam, who was not thrilled that I chose to cook dinner rather than sit on the floor playing with him. Keegan had been gone for 2 days and I was seriously ready for some relief. Liam had been getting over being sick, so all week he had been particularly needy. If you have children then you're familiar with the 'fingers-on-a-chalkboard' feeling you get when your toddler whines at you for the 2000th time in one day. I had placed Raleigh in her bumbo chair on the counter because she's always happier when she's up and observing what's going on. Liam was pulling at my pants leg begging for "pop," which in Liam-speak is cup. (No, we don't put soda in his cup, lol.) I knew if he had any more to drink he wouldn't eat at dinner so I told him for what felt like the thousandth time that day, "no." Again if you have children you know how well they take it when told no over something they reeeeally want. It's as if the sky is falling and they think the more dramatic their reaction, the higher chance of their survival. Liam's next tactic after the fit doesn't work, is to get between me and the counter, and push himself away from the counter, shoving me away from the counter with his body. At this point my fingers are covered in raw meat and I'm ready to explode. I tell him to go to timeout, where he heads unwillingly, screaming the whole way there. Meanwhile sweet Raleigh is observing all this nonsense. I'm fully convinced she's just soaking it all up and learning lots of nice tips on how to drive me to insanity in the future. I washed my hands and headed to the bottom step of the stairs where Liam was wailing in timeout. When I go to timeout to talk it over with him, he always tries to give me a hug right away, because he has learned that after hugs is when he gets out. I tell him that he needs to listen to me when he's told no, and that crying and pushing me is not allowed. I ask him if he understands, he nods, we hug, timeout done. I then took him back into the kitchen and asked him if he wanted to be my helper. He's really into being a helper right now, and I thought if I engaged him in what I was doing it would ease the boredom, and hopefully the meltdowns along with it. I set him up on the counter and assign him to the task of putting baby carrots into the food processor, (realizing quickly that I needed to remove the blade when he picked it up and started banging it on the counter.) I turned around to grab something, and next thing I know, he has removed the lid to the sugar canister and has thrown a huge fistful of sugar onto the floor. I walked right into it of course, and you know there's just nothing better than standing on linoleum floors with thousands of sugar crystals grating on your feet. *Deep breath, replace canister lid & move canister, head to closet to grab broom.* As I began sweeping, I  hear Liam giggle and look up to see banana oozing between his fingers. He had discovered an overripe banana on the counter and squeezed the tar out of it, sending mushy banana everywhere. (Learning about textures?)*Deep breath, grab Liam, and set him on the floor.* He's mad because I took him off the counter, and now even madder because his feet are covered in sugar granules too....and so begins the next meltdown, & me wondering why I always ignore my own rule that Liam doesn't belong on the kitchen counters. I ignore the crying for a minute while I wipe up the banana and sweep up the sugar. I took Liam to the rug by the door to show him how to brush the sugar off his feet. As I get back to cooking, (amazingly enough Raleigh is staying entertained by the chaos,) Liam has reached the point of no return. He doesn't feel well, he's thirsty, hungry, bored, I'm refusing him juice, and I wont stop cooking to sit down and play with him. He's crying uncontrollably, and when he pauses to get a breath through the tears he lets out a scream. At this point I had one of my finer mommy moments, turned around with spatula in hand, and in my most exasperated voice said yelled, "Can't you JUST BE PATIENT?" All of the sudden in a single instant my entire day flashed before my eyes...all those difficult moments throughout the day had culminated into the summit of my stress and all I could come up with is that I needed to be talking to myself! I felt like what I was yelling at my two year old was really God speaking to me what I needed to hear. I needed to have more patience. I immediately regretted snapping at him, although I'm pretty sure he didn't hear me over the sound of his own crying. I knelt down and pulled him into a hug and apologized for not being more patient with him. In his little two year old world, his day had been just as rough as mine. I've had 22+ years to figure out how to deal with rough days, he's had considerably less. I wiped his tears, got him a small cup of juice, and turned on a cartoon for him to watch while I finished up dinner. The evening continued to be hectic as it always is when Keegan's gone. We struggled our way through dinner time & bath time. When I was finally tucking Liam in to bed later that night and began to say bedtime prayers over him, I hesitated for a moment at the part where I usually pray for patience... In reality though, we will all be faced with stress and tough days whether or not we pray for patience so we might as well pray for the tools to handle what we're faced with right?

         Since that night I'm trying a lot harder to be patient with Liam over the little things. I know also that as he grows and learns, he will model his behavior after how I behave. If I want him to have patience, the first step is to model it for him. I read a quote today: "Patience is bitter, but it's fruit is sweet." - Jean Jacques Rousseau. It isn't easy, but I know that being a patient mom will pay off with happy, patient, (hopefully,) children. It sure does change the game when you realize every move you make is on display for your children to learn from. Hopefully I can withstand the pressure. What makes you impatient? How do you handle rough situations? Have you ever had an "aha!" moment regarding patience?

Looking at this sweet sleeping face last night, it makes me wonder how I could ever lose my patience with him!       

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau 

Busy Week

Hello readers! :) My goal is to post in this blog at least once a week. Hopefully I can find the time to post more frequently, as so much goes on in one week that I know I will forget what has happened that I wanted to blog about. Realistically though, I will be lucky if I can find the time to post once a week. I get most of my time in front of the computer in when I'm nursing my 5 month old, (yes, she's 5 months old today, time is FLYing!) So basically I'm off and on the computer in short little spurts of time throughout the day. My "me time" takes place after my entire flock, (Liam, Raleigh, AND Keegan,) are in bed. But then of course I have to choose whether I want to spend it sewing, watching mindless TV, browsing the internet, or....cleaning. (ugh.) Unless you live under a rock, you've heard of Pinterest by now. It's basically the biggest timesuck since Youtube. I've found myself sitting there for what felt like hours pinning and repinning hundreds of fun ideas for games, crafts, gifts, etc. It occurred to me shortly after discovering Pinterest that I spent way more time actually pinning things that "I'm definitely going to do," than actually doing them. So I figured in order to justify the large quantities of time I was spending looking at other peoples' creativity, I needed to start referring to Pinterest as my "inspiration" and devoting some of that time back into actually doing things. Along the same lines, I don't want to spend more time blogging about my life than actually living it, so I'm not going to set some lofty goal of posting 5 times a week. If I can, great, but to be honest, it's probably not going to happen.

We just wrapped up a pretty fun weekend. One of my best friends from high school Tiffany <3 and her mom came up for 2 nights. They got here Friday, and left Sunday afternoon. We haven't seen either of them much at all over the last year, and they hadn't met Raleigh yet, so we had a really nice time just hanging out and catching up. I made white chili and we stayed home and relaxed Friday night. On Saturday Tiffany went with us to one of my friend's son's first birthday party, and we ordered pizza for dinner when we got home. Sunday we went for a walk and then out to lunch before they left for FL again. We enjoyed their visit and Liam had a lot of fun with the extra people around to charm. Tiffany and Connie brought some really cute outfits for the kids. Raleigh got some super cute pink fuzzy boots, so I can't wait til it's cold enough for her to wear them. :D

Keegan left this morning for the week. He'll be back for the weekend, and then he's leaving on Monday for another week. Even though he's gone all day anyways, it's amazing what a difference it makes in my stress level to have him home for that short time in the evening! He usually entertains tries to entertain the kids while I cook, and he does Liam's bath & bed time when he's home in the evening. And of course it's always nice to have your co-parent there to take over a few of the "No Liam," "Stop that Liam," and "Don't cry Liam." But I swear when he's not home for that extra 3 hours in the evening, it feels like my work load triples. I've decided I'm not going to try to cook meals this week in order to lighten the workload. I typically cook about 6 nights a week, but with only Liam and I eating, I think I'll just do simple things like salads, sandwiches, yogurt, etc. Hopefully that'll free up some time and my kitchen wont get destroyed every day. On a normal day I swear I end up cleaning up the kitchen 3 times. After breakfast I'm emptying the coffee pot, washing the high chair trays, rinsing out sippy cups, wiping up sticky coffee spills, washing out scrambled eggs pans, and loading all the dishes into the dishwasher. By late afternoon we've accumulated that mess all over again from gold fish crushed on the floor, lunch dishes, high chair trays from lunch, chocolate milk on the counter, a pot from boiling eggs. And then as usual dinner is the worst. I try to clean while I'm cooking but that's not always possible. One day I'd like to time how many minutes a day I spend in the kitchen between preparing and cleaning up after meals. I'd like to bet it's at least a few hours. Okay so off my kitchen rant. (I've realized that I get off topic just as quickly when typing as I do when I'm talking out loud.) Anyways, the week is going to be very busy. In addition to being alone, I've got my PWOC meeting Tuesday, Liam's speech appointment Wednesday, plus babysitting Brandi's kids while she has a doctors visit. And myself and two other friends are throwing Brandi a baby shower this coming Sunday, so we are meeting every morning this week to finish up the decorations we're making, AND during some of my "me-time" I need to finish up the gift I'm making for said baby shower. I also had a rain check to get together and hang out with another friend and her kids. (We cancelled week before last when Liam was sick.) I'm a little bit tired just thinking about all this, and it's making me realize that with people coming over to the house I should really get up and do a bit of housework while the kids are playing nicely. (Liam is currently putting a sheet of Disney stickers all over the coffee table, and Raleigh is desperately trying to grab some dangling toys under the playmat.) They sure are cute at the moment. I'm sure as soon as I stand up to do something productive, meltdowns will ensue. Oh darn, I just remembered I'm out of baby wipes and I'm going to have to head to the store.


My friend Melissa and I are working on some super cute projects for Brandi's baby shower, but just in case she reads this blog before Sunday, I'm not going to say any more about them. Maybe next week if I remember I'll post some pictures. Ta-ta for now! 


<3


PS. As you may have noticed, my blog still doesn't have a title. If you think of something super cute and creative, feel free to suggest it! :)

Finally!

For the last 2 years since my son Liam was born, I've been intending to start a new blog to write about his growing up, our life, and little things that happen along the way. I had a blog a few years ago. I think I posted about 10 times and then abandoned it to the vast infinite pit that is the world wide web. I read back through those posts a few days ago. Although some of it is laughable, I enjoyed re-living, for a moment at least, the days before our kids were born. I was reminded of some various times in our life, good and bad, and it was just neat to see where we were, and where we've come since then. So at last, after 2 years of putting it off, I've finally decided to start up a new blog. I hope to record cute and funny things my kids do each day, things we do as a family, recipes, and maybe share some of my feeble attempts at learning to sew. :) Of course I could write these same memories down in a notebook, or in a private word document, but I know there are some folks who may enjoy getting a peak into things that go on in our lives. I get told countless times by friends and relatives, (those out of state mainly,) how much they enjoy and appreciate the photos of Liam and Raleigh that I post on Facebook. My kids' grandparents and great grandparents love being able to watch them grow up online even though they are hundreds of miles away and can't be here watching them grow up in person. On the flip side, Keegan and I both believe it is really easy to over share on Facebook, and that it's not necessary for all 400+ of my friends to know details of our lives, or see every picture of our kids' childhood. For this purpose, I can have a much more private blog that I can share with some and not others. Facebook has come a long way in its' privacy settings, so I know it could also be done there, but nevertheless, I will be moving most of my "oversharing" to this blog. I'm a member of a few recipe sharing groups on Facebook, and have had many people enjoy trying some recipes I've shared, so I'll also include those from time to time, so that I can send interested friends to the link. Also, I know when Keegan deploys next year this could be a great way for him to read up on things that I've been doing back here at home. Of course I'll be telling him these things every chance I get, but with time differences and potential lack of phone availability, a blog with the day-to-day stuff in it that he can access whenever he wants, could prove to be really helpful for us!

Consider this post sort of like a course syllabus for my blog. It doesn't lay out all the dates & deadlines, but at least you know what to expect. ;)

All my family is sleeping, so I'm going to use this opportunity to catch up on a few shows on my DVR. Goodnight readers. (As I typed that, it occurred to me that as of right now, nobody even knows about this blog and therefore I have no readers. I could just backspace now and no one would ever be any wiser....but I'm weird so I'm leaving this entire thought train here for "you" to read one day.)