thinking spring

A rose, a carrot and a worm. Could a girl need anything more for her birthday? Well...yes, but I am feeling pretty darn happy at the moment with this. Holden was hard at work this morning creating I guess what he felt I really wanted and I think he covered all the bases :) My birthday is actually tomorrow, but I asked for my "gifts" today as all I wanted was to stay in bed, have my coffee delivered to me, and watch my chick flick without being interrupted this morning. They did a nice job taking care of me. My family and in-laws do a really great job taking care of all the REST of my birthday wishes as they always give me money to shop with-yippee! So happy birthday to me on my 35th year(I really want to say ugg, but I'm not going to).

Thank goodness for dark tile

Why can't my kids make it in the potty? I thought there was such an advantage to being a boy when it came to relieving yourself. You know -the fun of aiming your pee, not having to pull your pants down all the way, flushing before you are even done. Boys should be effective, efficient goers. Mine are not. They aim at nothing, in fact they seem to aimlessly swing it around in circles. They practically take off their jeans, underwear, socks and shoes. And then they start to race out of the bathroom before they are even done. Resulting in a very dirty rim, floor, and yes I am horrified to admit-wall. The only time they flush is when they are first learning and then it becomes just too much trouble for them. Well, scrubbing the floor and wall around the potty is going to become just too much trouble for me pretty soon!
The fact that another aimless aimer will be arriving in the family is making my knees hurt. I was never very into those yellow rubber cleaning gloves but I think the time has come. My mother had me folding laundry like an expert at a very early age, do you think I can get my boys to clean the potty until it shines-not likely! So, I will devise yet another chart. And reward the boys who don't pee on the wall. Good Lord, never in my wildest dreams did I know what I was getting myself into when I became the mother of BOYS.

happy to put that one behind me

This week proved to be productive yet painful. One I am going to file under forget, even though I did accomplish what felt like a mountain of work, the pain of watching my friend hear the worst news of her life left me breathless. Becca is doing ok, although this next week for her will probably be worse than the one before if that is possible. Please continue to pray for her.

I was so happy when Friday arrived and Todd was home from his trip. the boys and I needed a new face here for sure, and the kids went straight to wrestling with him(just a little pent up energy to get rid of). I was anxious to show him all that I had accomplished in the basement. It took all week, but I went through every box, every container of kids clothes, every piece of paper that was down there. I was able to reorganize, throw out, and take inventory of all the boys clothes and baby gear which was my biggest priority. I think it looks great and most importantly I feel lighter with less clutter in my life. Todd has plenty of work ahead of him as well. He has garbage and Goodwill stuff to haul when the weather warms up just a bit.

So, this week has at least a list of 15+ things to do and that is probably good this time of year. I have to post a picture for my mom. I tried to capture the color of the walls in the family room, although it looks better in person. We only have the foyer and 4th bedroom to paint-ahhh

sad

My best friend Becca has lost her baby. We were only two weeks apart in our due dates. She is nineteen weeks pregnant and has found out that the baby will not survive. My heart is breaking for her and her family. Please pray with me that she is able to find peace and healing in the months to come.

baby it's cold outside

Trying very hard not to get my first taste of January depression this week. It is snowing at the moment, very cold and they are predicting blizzard conditions with even colder temps-uggg. this all means that they will probably cancel school this afternoon and maybe tomorrow, it will be impossible to get to the gym, and to top it off Todd is on his way to 80 degree Florida for the week-double ugggg. My basement needs to be tackled and this would be the week to do it if
I didn't feel so paralyzed with fear-it will be one of those projects that takes several weeks to get right.
There are a couple of things I am excited about this week and these are why I haven't gone into complete January sadness. My friends Jenny and Corie have both had there beautiful healthy baby boys and I am celebrating for them and kindergarten registration is this week! I think this week would be a great time to choreograph my happy dance for August. It will include lots of spins and kicks, several waves and a ton of hoots and hollers :)

on a roll

Around this house we have been organizing machines. Since Christmas weekend we have managed to get an amazing amount of tasks on my list crossed off and it is feeling so good. When we moved in to this house this summer I kinda vowed to enjoy the weather instead of work on the house. Then September,October and November came and I was so sick more went undone, but even before the new year I was feeling better and ready to get the things that had been weighing on my mind done. So in the past two weeks we have...

-painted the family room, kitchen and living room
-cleaned and organized a new office space in the guest room/craft room
-reorganized all the Christmas decorations
-organized all financial stuff in preparation to do taxes.
-cleaned out recipes, reorganized recipe binders and reorganized recipe space.
-collected all GoodWill for the next drop off
-Rearranged several cabinets in the kitchen
-and last but certainly not least-cleaned out the forth bedroom(it had become a major catch all since we moved in) so that we could get ready to paint it blue-yep! we are having another BOY :)

I have a ton more to do. Clean the basement, go through some more boxes, get rid of a lot more stuff, sell some things on Craig's list, paint the hall and change out light fixtures to name a few. But the best will be getting ready for our next little ninja turtle to be born!

one step back

I just have to post a few pictures from Christmas before I move on to a new year and new projects. We had a great month of December, this was the first year that I can say I really accomplished all the things that were on my enjoy Christmas wish list. I was so happy that between Thanksgiving and Christmas I did not step foot into the mall(except to see Santa) and felt very unaware of what the rest of this crazy world was doing. We had a chance to see all the Des Moines relatives and Holden and Asher would certainly say early Christmas at the lake house was a highlight for them. They got to see their cousins, and there was a bat flying around the living room right before our big Saturday evening dinner. They talked about it for days. I shivered about for days. Santa did a great job this year(he is patting himself on the back right now). The kids loved their gifts and he refrained from going over board which made him feel good. Fun was had by all and now I am looking forward to a very productive January(thank goodness my nesting instincts have kicked in).