Spring and life with my little ones

Monday 

...between jumping on the trampoline, naps and looking for rolly pollies....I loaded up the kids and headed to Blueville Nursery.

 

I found a new plant to try thanks to the cactus family. It likes heat and and lots of sun, so am hoping it's a win for the dead of summer. I am also a sucker for sweet potato plants in pots. In July when everything else is dead, they seem to hang on quite well.

spread wood chips and fill pots - check!

Tuesday: 

Clark is always DELIGHTED to see his Crazy Aunts! 

 

 

 Welcome Home Anna and Kristen! 

 Wednesday: 

desperate and yet unwilling to loose a chance at a teething baby's nap...

1) I ordered the essentials online.... A good feeling to lay on the floor playing with Clark and get all the bulky essentials walked to your front door. Free shipping! 

2) Posted a summer job on K-state student site and updated my cleaning list.

I used to think that the comment "well if i had a cleaning lady, my house would be clean" was a true statement. WRONG.


Some thoughts

a) True: young mom's have to lower our expectations.

b) I have to be ok with not doing it all - and equally true is being ok with not doing it all yourself, which leads me to...


c) There is nothing wrong with hiring someone to clean or help me pick up my house along side of me.

some days the options are
- it doesn't get done, taking care of kiddos and their souls take priority
or
- someone else changes the 3 year old pee'd on sheets and throws the musty smelling shower towels in the wash, and wipes down the outside of the frig, etc, ect
for $16 a week

a fraction of the cleaning that has to happen every week, but..

I'm going to love on my kids 

 and try to soak in these moments of their little years.

 Grandma B's blue canning jar.

+ flowers clark and I found along the road 

Anytime, my student graduates and I have to hire someone new, I remember how multi stepped the whole process is. These students obviously are not professionals in house cleaning, which is reflected in how much they make an hour but they seem eager to learn how to help me as a young mom. 

This is the list I helped Sarah create ... each week we took a room and figured out what order she wanted to clean the room.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/143603824/Cleaning-List-adjusted-fall-12

being a quickstart mom, i value getting something done even if it's not ABSOLUTELY spotless. Our goal was to take one room and do well a week and then just hit the worst spots in the the rooms. No, my house isn't "perfect" when she leaves - it is progress from where it started that morning. There is a sense of freshness that wasn't there. That's what we are talking about. Progress, not perfection.


3) figure out something fun to do in evening.

We picked up a lil friend of Clark's, Acadia since daddy has to work late these days 

This mama laid on the blanket and made faces at my giddy 7 mom old baby girl. 

Thursday

Since the crazy aunts are back from school, they invited clark to hang out with them.

 note the fierce bow and arrow.

 

...cleaning, grocery shopping, and prepping food for the WSI guy bbq went together faster than normal considering Clark was having the time of his life Grandma peggy's house.

That evening, the kiddos and I evacuated the premise just in the nic of time …and got back an hour late but the kids went to bed within seconds and without a peep at 8:30. Thankful.

Friday: 

The kitchen was full of dishes from the night before.... let's be real - that put me face to face with a bad attitude. 

surprisingly, Clark played sweetly with legos for almost 2 hrs.

....while mommy and Jesus worked on the bad attitude.

  took a date to the zoo in the afternoon

 ...and then picked up some carpet padding from the carpet store. My friend had these soft area rugs and she said the trick is to buy nice carpet padding a few inches smaller than your rug. Done! Love it.

so thankful for these lives!

          

week in pictures

Monday

 we got the call that one of my best friends was 

headed to the hospital to deliver her baby girl....

we got to spend time with the soon-to-be big brother!

 

 What 2 and 3 year olds do for fun. 

Tuesday - Fix it day

fixed my make-up board. Re-hung. love. 

Spent 25 minutes and organized my bathroom drawer 

big change

                it went from this  --------------------------> to this!

magnetic strip in drawer for bobby pins. Yippee!

 

 Tip: tried magnetic strip before...

 but it worked this time thanks to Hot GLUE.

 

I hire M to come play with Clark

2 hrs of all-boy-play

Spent the evening fishing with Cousin Marcus! 

Caught 7 fish the size of your thumb....

From the eyes of a 3 year old - PERFECT way to end a good day. 

Wednesday: 

...Continued working on kid closets, a true challenge for this quick start mama.

 

Thursday

Good morning life.

My house had been like this for a few days....

....i was tired and had a happy yet high energy boy on my hands.

{insert deer in headlight look}

....I prayed and i felt like God reminded me to call my girlfriend Heidi who has an 8 year old boy, saying "I need help"!

I knew that if I didn't get help, i would soon cross the line of being a consistent voice in clark's life to somehow communicating to his 'lil heart that it is "not ok" to be a 3 year old high energy boy.

To the rescue!
Sigh!  8 year old helping 3 year old out of tree

His friend S. helped Clark with worm dig'n, tree climb'n, ant killing and most importantly helped him turn over every stone in the yard for rolly polly catch'n.

Two hours later, S. seemed thrilled with the donation to his toy fund. As we waved goodbye to his 8 year old friend, I found myself trying to memorize the cute features of my 'lil bright eyed jabbering, snotty nosed, dirty fingernailed, scrapped-up-knee 3 year old. I love my 'lil man.

Thankful for the Body of Christ and life in a caring community.

Friday

Swimsuit time!

Other highlights: Aunt Kristen, Amy, Lyndsey stayed with us for several nights.

We had a houseful of people here at random times over Sat and Sun to get some good time with the Mathews who were visiting from Co. Loved catching up with old friends. 

 We got to meet Emma Grace!

 Such a cute lil beauty.
Meeting her was a great way to end the week!
Thankful for life.

Hello May

This week has been full of wonderful people and lots of fun, random moments. 

Keeping up with my lil man:

1) I walk into the room to find Clark loudly talking about "tilling a FI".  Of course he does it sport'n his boxers. Sheesh.

2) We spent a lot of time outside since daddy and Jon were building a new deck.  Clark was pretty upset about the old stairs being taken away so daddy screwed them onto the fence. Random – yep. He loved it.

 

3) And just when you thought life couldn't get any better - Clark got to go to Grandma B's house and catch 14 fish! 

 Uncle Jake and Clark

While sitting outside in the sand box or on the trampoline chilling with my littles....i whittled away at these babies. Gift for my friend having a boy - handcrafted thank you cards for a busy mama. Though interrupted a zillion times times i have realized my crafty side doesn't have to die just because i am a mama. It just looks different.

As for me, life is full. Without depression I am loving it. I told a friend again last week, depression and exhaustion are hauntingly similar. Update: I thought a couple weeks ago I was slipping back into depression but after a doctor visit and refocusing on nutrition and think we are clear. I pulled out of the fog. Thankful.

I worked for the pregnancy center again this week. My mother-in-law took care of my kids. {insert applause here}.  I found the stack of evaluations today along with the still-needed-to-be-unpacked diaper bag that smelled of sour milk. Nasty. Yesssss....i forgot and left the diaper bag in the car all week! sigh. But you know sentences like....”I was raped when i was 7 & and now I know it wasn’t my fault” sadly is not that uncommon. These type of evaluations are one of the reasons I tossed the nasty soured bottle in the trash without a second thought.  The wounds are deep.

On a lighter note: We loved getting to spend time with Rachel and Titus. My Sister-in-law and I prepped crockpot meals in gallon freezer bags and froze them for next week as she plans on trying to settle in her new house. Will post links to the recipes in a couple weeks once Rachel tries them...I'm a fan. 

-          Crockpot Garlic pesto Chicken with Pasta tomato Cream Sauce

-          Easy Crockpot Mongolian beef

-          Crockpot Applesauce BBQ chicken

-          Cilantro Lime Chicken

-          Crockpot beef tips and Gravy 

Sam and Nicole also came. I love our friends. I tried to not work on anything but it didn’t work. N and I tackled the bathroom shelf Allyn had put up for me. Guest supplies easy to grab - check.

                                              :: before and after ::

Oh, and Allyn spent 2 days in Chicago. Yes those are A10 warthog fighter jets at the manhattan airport.

This is the room I am continuing to work on (pic from last week). Asking the Father to give me the strength to keep going at it and not get discouraged. We made a lot of progress this week but don't have a picture of that yet. 

 ...and it's mother's day (note it is 12:15 a.m). This pic was the only one of me and both my kids this week. Not the greatest but man, I love my kiddos. 

Mother's Day -  Yesterday while running errands it hit me again how painful this holiday can be for so many. Death, infertility, illness, abandonment, separation... Father be near as we honor our mothers and yet stop long enough to see the harsh reality many face, especially on a day like today.

That's all. Night folks!