Grateful!

It's been a bit of a tough week for me. I have made myself work out every day Matt has been at work so if I work out today it will be 4 consecutive days. GO ME! Sorry, I'm a little excited that I've finally made myself do it. So back to the tough week. I have felt like everything is working against me in making these work outs happen. Tuesday Matt called twice in the middle of my workout. The second time he needed me to bring him things at work. Oh and I had kids climbing on me the whole time. I was over half way through so I decided I would finish and then pack up the kids and head over! He was slightly irritated, but when I explained he understood. I knew if I stopped in the middle I would never finish because Phillip needed a nap, Annaleigh needed food, and I needed to shower while Phillip was napping.

Anyway, I have decided I really need to work out while Phillip is napping so I can really focus on what I am doing. It has been hard making myself do it. I have a million things I need to do while Phillip is napping. I feel selfish taking that time to work out instead of doing housework or whatever. My big one yesterday was laundry. I have piles of clean laundry that just need to be put away. I usually put laundry away while Phillip is napping because he finds some sort of sick pleasure in destroying my neatly folded piles of laundry. So in order to avoid me fuming and double the effort in putting clothes away I just do it while he's in bed. I have tried waithing until he goes to bed at night, but I'm so drained I just don't want to do anything. While Phillip was napping yesterday I needed to workout, shower, eat, put away laundry, take care of Annaleigh...I'm sure there is more I could add to that list!

I was having a huge inner battle. I know if I find excuses even one day I will find excuses every day after. So I worked out. The living room was a disaster by the end of the day. The piles of clean laundry are still sitting there. I felt so...blah! So I had a nice chat with my wonderful husband. He made me feel so much better. His exact words, "I could care less if the laundry gets done." Haha, ok so I care if the laundry gets put away. I hate digging through baskets trying to find clothes for the kids. But I love him for this. He understands how hard it can be some days to take care of the kids and get things done. He understands working out is important to me right now, and how hard it is to find the motivation to build that habit. He just gets it!

So today I am grateful for our little family. I am grateful for our cute kids (even though Phillip has been waking me up before Matt is even awake). I am grateful for Matt, and his understanding nature. I am grateful I am able to do things that make him happy, and he can do the same. I am grateful that both of us understand stability takes a lot of hard work. We  know we can't expect to own a home, drive nice cars, have the best furnishings, and be up to date on technology without all the hard work first. I think having this knowledge allows us to be happy despite our circumstances. We have been down so many different paths since we have been married and yet we somehow make it work. It's all of this that helps me to know if we can just hold on to this perspective we can conquer anything that may come our way. And for this I am incredibly grateful!

Necessity Is The Mother of Invention!

Ok, so I didn't really invent anything, so maybe creation should be substituted for invention.

It has been one of those days. You know the ones where you run into a link with everything you try to do. I was attempting to put the finishing touches on the kitchen I cleaned up yesterday. Phillip was suddenly interested in the kitchen the moment I started sweeping. I finally got it swept. I went down to the basement to get the mop and found the box of mop pads open and dry.
I sent map a text that was a little ridiculous. It went something like this " YOU left the mop pads open now I can't mop the kitchen." Yeah, like I said ridiculous!
Anyway, so I relaxed and remembered seeing a crochet swiffer pad. So I went to Ravelry, a website of knit/crochet patterns, did a quick search and an hour later had this...

Now we will always have a pad for our swiffer and we can save some money!

Happy Birthday to me! (well a few days ago)

I am usually fairly excited about my birthday. This year I was not so excited for it. I am now closer to 30 than I am 20. Ugh! I am typically not one to fret about  my age. It's inevitable, but this one hit me a little hard. The day itself was a good day. I still had to be a mommy, which honestly is really the best thing ever! Little miss decided to do this on my birthday!

She has been trying for so long, and finally got it! While the kids were napping I relaxed and played on my sewing machine. I made a keychain for myself. One that slips over my wrist so I don't lose my keys with my arms full of kiddos! It has come in handy. Matt made me dinner! It was so yummy and it was nice not having to worry about dinner.

The Friday before my birthday Matt and I decided to go here..

Yeah, check out that elevation. In order to get there we had to do this

And if you are looking at the map thinking it looks quite easy check out this picture I took standing at one of the switchbacks

Can I just say, I am SO out of shape! The first 1/4 wasn't bad at all. About halfway is when it started getting hard. After that we had to stop so often. I would go a little  way and beg Matt to stop. Ok so I didn't have to beg. There is no railing and the clifs are fairly steep. He was quite concerned if we didn't take it slowly I would get dizzy and fall off the edge, lol! There were times when I wanted to just go back down, but I really wanted to prove to myself I could do it. We kept passing people along the way who would give us encouragement telling us it was worth it. I can't say the caves were incredibily amazing for me. At least not amazing enough to say that hike was worth it. I can say, however, the feeling of accomplishment was worth it. The view from the top was quite amazing.

And it was great quality time with my wonderful husband. I love this man!

New School Year = New Goals!

Who would have thought I would have children too little for school, but still have my life revolve around the school year? Well, it does and it will for the next year at least. So I guess we'll get a little break before Phillip starts school. We have been so off our schedules for the last month with Matt home all day. Don't get me wrong I LOVE having my hubby 24/7! We have just been trying to make the most of our time together so schedules and normal days are non-existent. Today we have a little taste of what things will be like when he goes back to work. He has a day full of meeting, the rest of the week off and goes back for good Monday. So I decided to make today a day to see how our schedule will work since the kids are getting bigger and their needs have changed slightly. Enter my new goal: working out! Since we don't have a double stroller and Phillip has too much energy to trust him on sidewalks, I have to find ways to work out in the house. So I am doing Jillian Michael's (The Biggest Loser goddess) 30 Day Shred. Can I just say, holy crap! I am SO out of shape. I think I'm in worse shape now than I was when I started it right before I got pregnant with Annaleigh. My legs are currently like jello. I just went up stairs to check on Annaleigh. Surprisingly up was NOT the hard part. I thought my legs were going to collapse coming down. I am seriously considering sliding down the stairs Phillip style when I have to bring Annaleigh back down. Go ahead laugh it up! I know I am! So my new goal is make working out a part of my daily routine AND, ready for the big one? My ultimate long term goal is to lose 43lbs by my anniversary, December 20th! Am I crazy? I might be! Only time will tell! At that point I will probably create another long term goal because really to make it to a "healthy" weight I will still have about 30 MORE lbs to lose.

YIKES!

Age does not bring grace!

Today was the worst dining experience of my life. We decided to spend our last day of absolute freedom (Matt's classes start Monday) in Riverdale at the splash pad. We haven't been in forever. Phillip loves water. And I am thinking they close it around labor day, but could be wrong. It seemed like the perfect thing for a nice Saturday. We got into town around lunch time so we decided we'd have lunch at Applebee's before the park. We have restaurants we will and will not go to with our kids in tow. Applebee's is on the kid safe list. It is normally a rather noisy environment and has sports and such playing on TVs at all times. It was actually a rather decent day for Phillip. He didn't throw any tantrums. He got a little upset we couldn't just leave to play in the water instead of eating first. He was by a window so he would spot things he like outside and tells all about them excitedly. He was a little loud. He doesn't quite understand the whole inside/outside voice thing yet, but like I said Applebee's isn't a quiet restaurant so I didn't see it as a huge deal. He would get up and jump on the bench. We'd sit him back down and he'd be ok for a while. We waited FOREVER for our food. Matt and I were getting antsy with how long it was taking. I can only imagine how much torture it was for Phillip. We finally got our food. Phillip would eat a few bites then find something to look at or stand up to look at the old ladies behind us.

I was almost finished with my food when he stood up, turned around, and the old self-righteous bat boozing it up at noon got nasty. I don't remember exactly what she said. I was in total shock when I realized she turned around to totally bash my parenting. It was something along the lines of how ridiculous our kid was being and how we should think twice about taking him out to lunch with us. I calmly turned around halfway through her rant. I decided from that point on Phillip could do whatever the heck he wanted for the very short remainder of our lunch. As I finished the rest of my lunch fighting back tears I thought of probably a million different things to say to her. She continued to make comments to her even older lunch buddy AND the people across the aisle from  us. I was so mad and really hurt. We couldn't get out of that place fast enough. Phillip had moved to sitting beside Matt and he can see I'm upset and is asking "what's wrong, mommy." Matt answered for me telling him "old ladies are rude, that's what's wrong." Toddlers are HARD! They have so much energy and are so excited about the world. That translates into an inability to sit still, inappropriate voice levels, and exploration of every kind(translation: they get into everything they shouldn't). I try so hard to keep Phillip in check. Her words were like a sucker punch. Maybe I'm not doing the best. Maybe my son is an insane annoyance to everyone around. Do people look at us and think we are horrible parents? After taking the time to look at this entirely about myself I started thinking about this situation as a whole. This woman knew absolutely nothing about us. What if our situation had been special? A million different scenarios of how she could have really severely hurt someone played out in mind. What if my child were special needs? I can't believe someone could be so rude about lunch at Applebee's. It's not like we took our kids to a nice steakhouse or even Olive Garden. I chose not to say anything at all to the lady. I was wishing after we left that I had said something to make her understand how incredibly rude she was being. After a few hours of thinking, I realized nothing good would have come of anything I said to her. She was too old and shriveled for anything to sink in.

Hours later I am still in shock about what happened. We have gone out to eat several times here in Evanston with Phillip being much worse than he was today, and no one has ever said a word to us. In fact, just yesterday we were grocery shopping and he was throwing an absolute tantrum. Matt had to pick him up and he was kicking and screaming. A sweet lady came up to us. She was shopping with her daughter and told us her daughter had a boy who was exactly like that and is now a perfect gentleman so there is hope. It was such a nice gesture. It is so hard raising a toddler. You spend most of the day at your wits end and the rest realizing how worth it it all is. It was so nice to have someone, especially a complete stranger give you pat on the back. A little encouragement. So if you are out and about and ever see a young mother struggling say a kind word. You cannot imagine how much it will lift her spirits especially if she has a trying little one!

As I put Phillip to bed tonight I took an extra minute to love him. I love the mess out of that little boy no matter how crazy he is. I love his craziness. I love watching him learn and grow. I love watching him get so excited and how he is learning to care for others. Today I vow to try a little harder to let him be a toddler. To not get so worked up over ALL the little things he does throughout the day. I don't want him to ever NOT be excited about life. The manners will come eventually. I think nice little reminders of how to act appropriately for the setting are much more appropriate for a toddler than insisting perfection. You'll only end up overly frustrated. And here's to hoping I do not encounter mean old ladies on a regular basis!

Spoiled?

Matt thinks I spoil Annaleigh. I do make more things for her and I do get really excited about all the girly things I can make. It is so much easier to make cute things for girls. There just aren't a lot of creative things to make for a toddler boy. I might be able to make him a tie. I have made him beanies. Cute things are just simply easy to make. And maybe I do spoil her. I find myself feeling the need to compensate when it comes to her. Other than my mom, sister and brother-in-law who all came in from Texas no one came to see Annaleigh at the hospital despite her birth being scheduled weeks before and actually being in the hospital for like 4 days. When Phillip was born we were met with a group of people when I was finally moved  to my room from recovery. We have never had pictures made of Annaleigh. The only pictures I have of her are the ones I've taken. Then there's the whole being grateful she is even here considering all she has gone through. So maybe I do spoil her a little by making her cute things to wear. It's cheaper than buying her tons of cute stuff like we did with Phillip. I think I'm okay with spoiling her now. She's an independent baby for the most part. She has her moments where she only wants mom, but she sleeps in her own bed, she puts herself to sleep, I can actually clean while she's awake, she can entertain herself, and she developing normally. I think she's a fairly well adjusted baby even with the spoiling!

Nap Time Crafters: Lilypotamus Giveaway & a Winner!

Nap Time Crafters: Lilypotamus Giveaway & a Winner!:

Nap Time Crafters is hosting a Lilypotamus giveaway! Lilypotamus has some adorable girls clothes. While you're there check out Nap Time Crafter's tutorials. She has some adorable stuff!