A Week in the Life: Day 5

Today was Boogie's monthly preschool sing and since it was Thursday, it also means T-ball practice. Enjoy!

Waiting to sing the next song.

Batter Up!

Ready and waiting to catch a ball!

Buggy snacking in the car waiting for Boogie to finish practice.

Thursday=Take Out

My daughter the carnivore...chomping on a chicken leg. Yum!

Sorting the kids' outgrown clothes into buckets to be used again by another baby (I hope!) Can you find Buggy in this picture?

A Week in the Life: Day 4

Today was a little tougher. I think my son needed a nap. He was teary eyed and fussy in the morning. I was much the same as I was also tired. I need more sleep! Here some fun pictures from Day 4. Enjoy!

My movie star children! I had to buy my son sunglasses because he is really sensitive to sunlight. He is enjoying wearing them, especially since Daddy got a new pair recently.

I just love Buggy's expression in this one. She makes me laugh all the time.

Profile shot.

Of course, a picture with Chester

More laughter from my little one.  Really difficult to get a picture of my constantly moving children :)

One of the ways I relax, a mug of my favorite tea! Celestial Seasonings Decaf Sweet Coconut Thai. Yum!

A birthday gift from Uncle David, a baby pterodactyl.

My birthday gift from my brother. I'm very excited to put new tunes on my new ipod!

The gift from my sweet Hubby. I love the inscription. This little thing will help make my 5-miler more enjoyable, especially paired with the itunes gift card from my little brother.

This was supposed to be my "before" picture of my kitchen table before dinner and then I would have a pretty after picture...

...not so much...here is the after picture...a class project my son and I were working on for his preschool teachers.  The table was clean for dinner and then right back to where we started. I need a better system!

My sweet hubby helping out after the kids are in bed. Thank you, Sweetheart!!!

A Week in the Life: Day 3

I've been documenting my week, but a few things that I couldn't document with my camera are:
--my son waking up early in the morning asking my husband to fix his sheets and then telling him that he was going on an adventure at school.
--my son fully waking up in the morning and singing, "Good morning, good morning, good morning dear Mommy," before coming down the stairs.
--my husband calling and suggesting we do dinner out (I was sooooo grateful because I was falling down tired!)
--the amazing and gorgeous full moon we had (Note to self: always bring your camera with you, especially if you are documenting a day in pictures!)

Here is Day 3, enjoy!

The view from our mini van's "conversation mirror."

Trusty Chester who goes with us everywhere, but stays in the car waiting for his best friend to come back.

A box turtle sunning himself on a floating dock. Just one of the cool things we saw on our field trip to Meadowside Nature Center.

Lilypads. Reminds me of college, eh, Jessica?

My son paying attention and looking for the box turtle and telling me that the lilpads were beautiful!

Another box turtle. This time sunning himself in the tadpole pond.

On our way to soccer.  My daughter snuggling with her "baby."

My son has officially given up his naps, but fell asleep on the way to Buggy's soccer class. I had to wake up the poor little guy when we got there. He was so tired it took me several minutes to wake him.

My husband's old law school backpack, now serving a higher purpose as our diaper bag.

A rearview mirror shot.  Buggy waiting to go into soccer, and Boogie fast asleep.

An interesting picture before soccer class. My daughter in the background, and my son (the blur) in the foreground. This pretty much sums up my day. My daughter methodical and independent, and my son, a constant blur of energy and enthusiasm.

A Week in the Life: Day 2

Day 2 of my week long post on a week in my life. Enjoy!

Our garden that Hubby planted. I don't have a green thumb, but I did help to plant the seeds in individual planters. After they sprouted Hubby and Boogie planted our garden. I will help weed and harvest. Yum!

This is after 5 days of putting one of those sponge in a capsule toys in water. It took FOREVER for it be born. My son was very patient and very excited.

My son's daily breakfast of dinosaur oatmeal. He's on a dinosaur kick right now. The dinosaur eggs hatch after being cooked. You stir and dinosaurs!

Filling out my daughter's 18 month survey for the doctor.

Candyland, anyone?

A little play-doh fun while the baby sleeps.

My trusty running shoes. Two weeks old, but already infused with blood and sweat. They will carry me through the Germantown 5-miler in 3 weeks!

Blurry, but I love our expressions as we cuddle together on the couch before bed!

Starting to de-stress

I was so grumpy all week. A lot of things were on my mind a lot of it being how to organize the next 3 weeks with one of them having my husband gone on business. I was also stressing about how I was going to juggle running a local 5-mile race in 3 weeks and yet get my son to his t-ball game and have someone watch my daughter. Before it was going to be me running the race and my husband taking the kids to the t-ball game. I was sad I would miss my son's last game, but happy that my husband would be able to do it.

 Unfortunately, we just found out that he would be out of town and might possibly get in during the wee hours of Saturday morning.  Not the greatest because he would be tired from all of his traveling and then having to juggle the kids.  Now we found out that in order to be home for the game, he would have to take the red eye back and not get back until around 7am, and by the time he got home, the t-ball game would have already started, which still leaves us with the dilemma of what to do with the kids: pull out of the race? Run the race and have someone babysit the kids and miss the t-ball game? Call on friends or family to take both kids to the t-ball game?  All of the options have been running through my head. None are ideal and I absolutely loathe calling friends or family for favors because I hate putting people on the spot.  I always try to handle it on my own if possible.

Fortunately my husband does not have this problem.  He explained the dilemma to my parents last night and asked my mom to watch the kids and I held my breath. My dad was listening and offered not to run the race with me and offered to help my mom instead. Sigh of relief. This will work out.  I hate asking my parents to watch the kids, because I never want to seem like I'm taking them for granted. I really try to space out when asking them to watch the kids and have started calling a babysitter more often to watch the kids when we go out (though I only ask my parents to help out about once a month, apparently that's too often).   My parents have admitted that watching both kids is very tiring and hard for both of them. They love the kids, but my son is super active and my daughter calls everyone Mommy, making my mom think that my daughter is constantly calling for me (which she isn't). This causes them to become very tired. I should also clarify that both my parents work full-time and my father plays drums in a band. Both are in their 50's. They're tired.

It's amazing that having this one very stressful dilemma solved has made me less grumpy. I think my grumpiness is a side affect of my anxiety.  It's usually the reason.  I'm still concerned about the next 3 weeks because it will just be crazy busy for us, but I feel like I will be able to get things done.  Big thank you to my BFF, Jessica, who knows of stress and is bringing her girls over for a play date with my kids next month so that I can get a few things done.  I am so grateful!  Let the good times roll!

Week in the Life: Day 1

I'm taking this idea from my friend Mandi. I was reading her blog and she decided to do a week long blog using pictures to describe her day/week.  I loved the idea so much I thought I'd give it a try.  It really made me stop throughout my day to analyze my day.  Maybe it will be an insight to why I'm so discombobulated...or just an affirmation that I made the right decision to stay home with my beautiful children.  I thought about putting the posts in my family blog, but some of the pictures are so quintessentially discombobulated that I felt that they belonged here.  Welcome to Day One.

How I start every morning. My devotional on the book of Luke, The Soccer Mom Devotional, and my trusty Macbook.

My constantly cluttered kitchen counter. My catchall for all things throughout the day. I need to find a better system!

Wrapped present for our neighbor's 3rd birthday.

No crying over spilt milk. Unfortunately this was the first of 4 spills today.  My daughter is learning independence and it didn't matter if there was a lid on her cup or not, it spilled. *sigh*

Pigtails make me happy!

The independence of which I speak. Buggy stealing a sip of milk from her brother's cup.

My beautiful daughter with a milk mustache and a runny nose.

In the midst of writing thank you notes for my son's birthday gifts.  I admit I bribed him with jellybeans to sign his name on each one.

My son's constant companion, Chester.

Spring planting

My companion and nemesis rolled into one.

In Need of a Do-Over

Yesterday, it was just one thing after another!  It probably didn't help that I woke up with a bit of a bad attitude because my car was in the shop. But I love my car, not because it's fashionable or fancy, but because it's my car and I feel stranded without it!

Why I think I need a do-over:

7am--Take Hubby to metro so he can go to work and I can still have a car.  (Wake up kids who would have probably slept in today and get them in the car to take Daddy to Metro).

8:33am--Call Children's Hospital (3rd call) to set up an appt. for my son. I had gotten a referral from Kaiser to have them evaluate my son's walking. He walks on his toes and has been doing it consistently since he could walk. He's 4.  Even though the last two times I called they said that to call back in the morning and they start taking calls at 8:30, I got a message machine saying that they take calls at 9am. The person who answered my call and transferred me was incredibly rude. Asked me what I was calling for and while I was trying to explain, cut me off without any explanation and transferred me to another department while I was in the middle of talking. Found myself talking to music.

9:10--Leave for gym (an hour later than I wanted to!)  After 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to fit my double stroller in the our 4-door sedan and missing my minivan even more!

11:10am--sitting in parking lot at McD's, not for food, but so I could call JCPenney's to see if I could come in to view the pictures that they took the day before my Buggy. They couldn't show them to me yesterday because they were too busy but assured me I could come in anytime yesterday to view and purchase.  It was at this time my daughter starts screaming and crying.  When I asked my son what happened I get the classic response, "I don't want to tell you." After much effort to he asks, "What would happen to me if I told you I bit her?" *sigh* Come to find out he bit her finger. He doesn't know why, or so he says.  As he's explaining why he won't tell me what he did, he's crying loudly.  Took me 15 minutes to find the right number for Penney's because the number I was given the day before was for the optical department, not the portrait studio. Thank goodness for cell phones with internet. Got the number, only to be told by a different photographer that he could set me up to view the pictures, but he had an appointment at the same time.

11:45-12:35--waiting to view the pictures, viewed the pictures, waiting to be seen so that I could pay for pictures.  Took way longer than necessary. I was told that two people would be in the studio that day and I would be helped if I came in anytime before 2pm. I did, they didn't.  Two hungry children and 1 in desperate need for a nap made for a grumpy mommy.

12:35--Lunch to go from Mcd's for the kids.  I hate that I did this, but they were starving and so was I.

1:15--Baby down for a nap. Called Children's again, same rude person, same cut off, same transfer, only to be talking to a message machine to leave my name, number, and reason for my call and that they would get back to me in the next 48-72 hours. *sigh* This was the 4th call I made to try to get an appointment for my son.

1:30--Car shop called. "Ma'am, we can't find anything wrong with your car."  This is after my car wouldn't start several times and when it did start it died immediately 2x in a row.  Which is why we took it in and yet the car started for them several times and perfectly. So we wasted a day?

4:30pm--Had to call the exterminator to find out what time they were coming because I had to leave in 30 min. to pick up Hubby from the metro to get the car before the shop closed.   My bad, I didn't realize it was a 2 hour window, and they technician couldn't get there until after I had to leave to pick up Hubby. Fortunately, receptionist was really, really nice and helpful!

5:20--20 minutes late picking up Hubby, because baby had a mini-blow out in her diaper. Had to change everything before leaving the house.

5:30--Car shop didn't see that my husband asked them to do an oil change, so nothing happened with the minivan that day. Nothing.

5:45--walk in door and promptly dropped a glass bottle of Izze blackberry soda on my tile kitchen tile floors that I had just wet-Swiffered not only 2 hours before. Glass and soda everywhere.

I just felt like it was one thing after another! I was in desperate need of a do-over. My husband "helpfully" told me that I was very grumpy.  Fortunately today is just t-ball and swim class. The rest of the day is "free!"  Now to get all the errands don today that I couldn't get done yesterday!

Good things
I feel like I should tell you of the few good things that happened yesterday:

1. My son woke up with a dry pull-up. I heard him get up at 2:30am to go to the bathroom. He came in to give my Hubby and me and kiss and he went back to bed. Woke up to dryness. Awesome!

2.  The receptionist at Ehrlich Pest Control was really understanding and helpful. After a full day of not-so-very helpful people, she was was breath of fresh air. Which is one of the reasons, I will probably use them again. Oh, and because they got rid of my ants!

3.  When my husband came home to find me on my hands and knees cleaning up glass and blackberry soda. He took over and I watched my son play outside for a few minutes.


4.  Headed to bed to find that Glee was doing a repeat or Tuesday's episode and I wouldn't have to Hulu later in the day. I'm a Gleek.

5. Two happy pictures I took while waiting for dinner to heat up.

  My happy boys.

My happy Sunshine