Life is better

I kept meaning to write this at the end of last week, but I kept getting side tracked.

Life got better. 

It always does. 

Wednesday night I took Evan to Acute kids instead of church, low and behold she had an ear infection.  But that meant she got antibiotics.  Thursday she still felt crummy (but amazingly without fussing) and Friday I determined it WOULD be a good day.  And it was. 

This girl's breathing improved.

Luke doesn't seem to need breathing treatments right now, and currently Evan only needs them at night (and even that is tapering off).

GUESS WHAT. Evan is getting her first tooth!  Poor poor baby, right in the middle of all the health drama, she was cutting her first tooth.  It's the lower middle left one, and I think it's just about done breaking through totally.  I first discovered it on Saturday, my heart skipped a beat or so when I did. I can't believe it.  One more step away from infancy.

Someone hold me.

You know a girlfriend feels better when she becomes thrilled with a new pair of shoes.  Saturday morning I went shopping with Mom and I got a couple of pairs of flats.  One pair is black with a rhinestone brooch thing on the toe, and when Evan saw them later that night on the floor of my bedroom she squealed and had to get her hands on them. 

While I don't fancy myself a girly girl, I do appreciate a certain amount of sparkle in my life.  I love that she loves it too. 

A few minutes later I had put her in her room to play, and Luke joined her.

Thrills my heart.  What mom wouldn't want to peek in on her children and see this?  I do hope (although I'm not holding my breath) that they always get along sweetly. 

And last night before small groups Luke was begging to go to the park.  Since it was beautiful weather, I consented.  But given that they are both on antibiotics for ear infections, I made them both wear a hat.  Luke was thrilled and didn't mind the hat.

I can't say the same for Evy girl.

I think she just wanted to go back to sleep.

Last night after the littles were asleep, I turned on the old broken laptop to transfer some pictures onto my external hard drive and also put on the bookmaking software that I have, which makes all my photo books.  I wanted to see if I could run it through the external at work without installing it on the desk top.  And BOOM!  I can! While I can't finish the book I've started (2010- I'm up to September), I can start a new book.  Which I've been doing all morning.  2011 January and February is already done.  Hopefully I won't be a over a year behind for too much longer.

It's also forced me to go back and look at my blog (to keep the pictures in order, I use this as a reference), and it has made me realize how much better I used to write.  Both in quality and quantity.  It also made me miss being a stay at home mom more than I have in awhile, and made me want to run back to that girl and tell her to run for the hills- life is about to turn upside down.  But that's the bitter sweetness of hindsight.  I had no idea.  Okay.  I had an inkling.  But not anything like life has become. 

Eh.  Life is just becoming a new kind of beautiful, right?

Confession

You know that sinking feeling, when life is just beating you down and nothing seems to go right and your head keeps bobbing under water?

Yeah.  I'm there.

There has been a whole lot of this.

And even more of this.

It all started Wednesday.  I took off of work because both Luke and I were sick.  Cold, sinus infection, something.  I don't know.  I already had a doctor's appointment for Evan because she wasn't pooping, and wouldn't you know she was the only one not sick.  While we were there Kim listened to Luke and gave him a prescription for some cough meds/decongestant.  By Friday he was good, just got run down easily, then he ended up going to the doctor for an ear infection.

Evan finally started pooping on Sunday, which is also when she started wheezing.  Bad.  She sounds like Wheezy from Toy Story.  And the cough.  Oh the cough.  It takes her entire body to cough.  Terrible. 

So....I'm a little over all of this sickness.  We were doing so good for awhile too.  If I have to take Evan in today, that will be three doctor trips in a week.  I've got better ways to spend our time and money.  Sorry for the blahness.  I used to be funny and light and interesting.  Maybe tomorrow?

Not that life has been ALL bad ALL the time.  Tuesday night (unfortunately when neither of us we feeling stellar since we were coming down with out colds) Ashely and I took Luke to his first Stars game.

We had fun!  The people in front of us were hysterical- totally into it- and the game was good too.  As you can see from the picture, we were pretty high up and Luke is a stander....he likes to stand as opposed to sit.  The rational person in me knew that he wasn't going to fall forward and topple all the way down to a painful demise, but the momma in me couldn't help it.  I literally had one hand on him the entire night.  Don't laugh. 

Sunday night the Foltermann's treated us to ice cream.  Laughter and frozen dairy products go a long way.

And it all really could be worse.  You know how I have the best baby ever?  Well, I really have the best baby ever.  Even when her eyes are droopy and her tummy hurts and she just feels crummy, she STILL is in a good mood.

I don't know how she does it.  Lord knows she didn't get it from me. 

(that's pear juice in her bottle.  Kid not pooping?  4 oz of pear juice is the only thing that works for us)

Game time

So, I told myself (in an un-resolution type manor) that I was going to try and get better about blogging.  And yet here it is, still a week later.  Whoops.

Friday afternoon I got a fun and unexpected surprise.  I was gearing up for another ho hum weekend at home, when a friend gave me a couple of season tickets to the Maverick's gave that night that would have gone unused.  These were awesome seats.  Bottom level, 11 rows back, corner of the court.  I found a friend to come along, called up Mom to babysit, and made an evening of it.  We had so much fun.

Saturday I felt guilty for not seeing the kids all night, so I made them a priority over housework.  After a long nap together I took them for a leisurely dinner at Chipotle and then to the grocery store (needed stuff for a roast for tonight's dinner, which is currently cooking in the crock at home.  I put in WAY to many veggies, we'll see how it turns out.)  Before we left, I tried this little clip in Evy girl's hair since it's been growing more and more. 

When I asked Luke what he thought of Evan's clip he said "Um, I think she needs a bigger bow." And pointed to her wall hanging of massive headbands.  That's my boy. 

Speaking of that boy, he's been cracking me up all weekend.  At the grocery store I decided I'd get a can of biscuits for Sunday's breakfast, as opposed to the normal cinnamon rolls or muffins.  You would have thought this was the best idea I've ever had in my whole life after his over-enthusiastic "YES!" while simultaneously punching the air with his fist.  He also informed me that Evan does not have a pen-es like he does because he is a boy.  She has two bottoms because she is a girl.  I just stared at him with wide eyes and moved on.  He has also become quite fascinated with the number 17.  Not sure why.  I just tend to move on from that one too. 

Friday I got this sent this picture from Shae.

It didn't last long though.  Not even 5 minutes later she texted back that Luke has already returned to the train table and Dakota was BEGGING him to play superheros with him.  To no avail.  But it seems that some superhero talk has sunk in, he was bound and determined to have the superhero vitamins at the store on Saturday night over the Car's ones we'd just finished up.  I consented.  He is such a funny kid.  Talks a mile a minute.  Last night his reactive air ways flared up again though.  He woke up at 4:45 in a panic over having trouble breathing and the giant coughing fit.  It took awhile to calm him down, then do a breathing treatment.  By the time I got him back in bed at almost 6, Sister Friend was stirring for breakfast. 

Not the best way to start a Monday.  But these faces?

Totally worth it.

Christmas photos

Christmas at Grandy's:

 

 Luke's preschool Christmas party:

 

 

 

 

Santa Jammies!  First neither would look....

 Then she would look.....

 Then he would look....

Finally they both did.

 

Christmas at Nana and Papa's:

Christmas Eve:

 

 

Christmas morning!

 

 

Better late than never, right?

Twitterings

I think only two of you follow me on twitter, so I thought I'd share all of my musing over the last couple of weeks. 

-I feel like Hershey Air Chocolate is just a ploy to sell less chocolate for the same price. Also, I very much love potato bread.

-Two steppin' in the kitchen with a certain little man. I may have even dipped him. One day I'll let him lead.

-I also just told that little man that the shredded carrot on his plate was kinda like an orange French fry. He tried & liked it. #parentwin

-The worst- headed to lunch totally famished and the elevator smells like the take out of who ever just got off. Not helping.

-After watermelon, pineapple, chips, salsa, & a 6 pack, picking up a pizza from the store wasn't cheaper than delivery. But my tummy? Happy.

-@ZooeyDeschanel Just walked by my three year old playing in the living room. He was singing the #newgirl theme song. No joke.

-You know you are good friends when you don't even think about brushing your hair before hanging out.

-FYI. Too Faced Shadow Insurance is what I've been missing all of my life. I have a new love and I am not ashamed.

-Choosing to read and eat chips and salsa in the fort instead of showering during nap time. #nevergrowingup

-Lord have mercy. Whoever decided that babies should eat baby food clearly did not have a type-A personality.

 

-Dropping all pretenses that I have any class & drinking champagne straight from the bottle. No point in dirtying a glass when it's just me.

 

-Good thing I didn't resolve to eat healthier this year. The boss just brought in CFA chicken biscuits. I love them.

 

-Know what I miss? Gilmore Girls. And sleeping more than 5 hours a night. And holding hands. And Baby Sitters Club books. Remember those?

 

-How in the world did Tim McGraw get in my Texas Country que? Come on Pandora. Let's fix this.

 

-George Strait, Alan Jackson, & Garth Brooks do not qualify as Texas Country either. Pandora. Get it together. I don't want regular country.

 

-I've graduated from eating ice cream straight from the pint to straight from the half gallon.

New Years and then some

I promise I will post a few pictures of Christmas.  It may be July before I get to it, but dang it, I'll make it happen.  My laptop and blogger just don't get along so it takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to try and upload photos.  Something I just don't want to tackle by the time I get everyone fed, bathed, bedded and the house picked up and the kitchen cleaned of dinner and the lunches packed for the next day and the bags put together.  So, you are left with another catch up post using phone photos.

What did I do before my iPhone? 

And thank you for loving me enough to put up with it.

:)

The night of the 28th (I know because I posted it on facebook) I fixed Luke and I a nice baked potato dinner.  I have been wanting us to move to more table eating as opposed to just letting him run around and play and eating when he wants to.  I think you can tell his opinion on the matter.

The caption that went with the picture- "Now taking applications for a new dinner companion. If you don't throw fits you're a shoo in over this guy."

The next day, Thursday afternoon, Mom was keeping the kids so she brought them up to have lunch with me.  Could my lunching girl be any cuter?!

Probably my second favorite photo in the entire world.  This one, the second one, is still #1.

That night I was giving Evan her nightly bath.  I figured Luke was playing in the living room with his train table, like always, but alas.  He wasn't.  In fact, I was in for a bit of a shock.

I always thought I would first play in my jewelry box with my daughter, but it looks like my son beat her to it.  He'll grow out of it, right?  I mean, he did grow out of being obsessed with pink and purple.  Remember that?



New Years weekend was such a nice one.  Saturday morning I got the house all cleaned and we got to play outside.  In shorts. 

I love living in Texas.  It still gets up to the mid 60's here, but I heard a rumor that tomorrow it's supposed to get cold.  That's also how we do it.  Change seasons in 24 hours.  This was all before the kids' dad called and asked if he could have them for the afternoon while they did one last Christmas.  That left me with an afternoon to myself.  I believe my exact tweet was (and I just copy/pasted) "Kids are with their dad, so I'm on the couch with chips, salsa, and Harry Potter 4. Laundry be damned."  A quiet afternoon was not about to be wasted.  One thing I did eventually accomplish was moving all the baby toys out of Luke's room and into Evan's room, and moved a tub's worth of outgrown clothes from her drawers to said tub.  It also forced me to look at all the sweet little newborn things that she outgrew in about a week.  It pained my heart to see such little things and know that I will never have that again.  So I decided a few of her outfits could live on as doll clothes. 

Don't judge.

The kids got home that night in time for bed so I put them down, turned on the hockey game, and settled in to wait for midnight on the couch.  It was my first official New Years with no kiss, but that's okay.  I toasted myself with some champagne and called it a night.  Sunday morning we woke up and went to church, had lunch with Mom and Dad, then home for a nap.  Since I'd stayed up the night before I let myself nap with the girl.  Who woke up before me and found something to read.

At least it was quality material, right? 

That night we went to a friend's house for a tiny birthday celebration, which was always a good time.  Since technically it was a party, I dressed my girl for a party.

What you can't see are the black leggings and the silver Toms. 

Speaking of that girl, her hair is getting thicker and curlier.  I wish I had a better picture than this...

It doesn't do her justice, but oh well.  Monday I didn't have to work so I dedicated the day to Luke.  He wanted to go on an adventure, and inside adventure.  Not a clue what that means.  So, I did what any good mom would do and built him a sheet fort.  We moved the couch to the side of the living room and just went for it.  He had the best time.

But the funniest thing was, no matter how much I referred to it as a fort or a tent, he'd refer to it as the adventure.  "Mom, lets have lunch in the adventure."  "Read me this story in the adventure."  I went with it.