Hope

I have such hope.

Hope for my future.

Hope for my heart.

Hope for my children.

I feel the need to express this, kind of to follow up on the blog I wrote last night.

I know I am loved. I appreciate every ounce of love that is wrapped around me. I know those who sometimes stress me out the most, nevertheless love me very much. It's just that they aren't always able to express it in a way that is easily accepted by me.

In difficult times, the heart craves kindness and understanding and that's exactly what I need at the moment.

I have wonderful friends, both here and far away. I am so thankful for each of you. Your words soothe my soul and fill me with this hope that I have.

Today was a difficult day. I only ate about a handful of food today, because I felt too sick to my stomach to eat. I hate that feeling.

I don't like feeling scared about my future. I don't enjoy worrying about what is going to become of certain things my children love and enjoy so much.

My wonderful friend, Alison, had the kids and I over today for a playdate and a mommy date. We enjoyed great conversation, tears, laughter and wine.
It was therapy.
It's always nice to have your thoughts and feelings validated, while simultaneously receiving kind words of advice. Especially when it's advice that totally makes sense to you.

Then tonight, Amber provided a much needed listening ear for me to vent. It was fabulous. She is fabulous.

Life would be empty without my girlfriends.

I love you, friends.

You've made my weekend more bearable. Whether you know it or not. :)

I Needa Break...

So much is going on...

In my head

In my heart

In my world

I need a break.

Seriously.

I'm about to turn 31 and I still feel like I am treated like a child by some.

I remember when I WAS a child.
The adults in my world were actually treated as such.
I never saw one being reprimanded by a parent or elderly family member as if they were still expected to abide by their rules.

There are some days when I would gladly return to my childhood years, but only for great benefits such as....

no bills to pay
no house to be responsible for
no people to be responsible for
nothing to really worry about except what I was going to gossip with my girlfriends about the next day...

But for the most part, I am extremely happy that I am grown.

And while I do love living by my family, there is so much pressure to be "perfect".

Unfortunately, I am not perfect and really... I have no desire to be perfect.
I know I make mistakes.
I know I make decisions that not everyone agrees with.

But they're my mistakes to make, my decisions to make, and my life to live.

I'm positive that as a child, I witnessed many, many, many things that if I were to do those very same things today, I would be judged and get a tongue lashing like no other.
But oddly enough, those adults never got tongue lashings, they were allowed to do what they wanted with their lives because... they were ADULTS.

Anyway, I just feel so spent.

And this was a venting blog...

Sorry if it bored you outta your mind, sometimes... a girl just has to vent.

My Favorite Things

This new year has brought with it so many new favorite things. I thought I would share, because YOU might be looking for new favorite things as well! :)

Recycling.... definitely one of my new favorites. I did it last year, but not with nearly the gusto that I'm currently doing it. If I can at all justify it as being recyclable, it goes in the recycling bag. And God bless my trash collectors. They tell us to put all our recycling in one bag and they seperate it for us. It's marvelous!

I thought I had used every fabric softener in creation, but heaven's no... I bought this Snuggle last week and I am so in love. I find myself laying in bed at night with my nose buried in my shirt. That's how yummy it is.

You all should know by now that I live on a farm. Therefore, we are have a well. We aren't on city water. Well, we've only been in this house a little over two years and I noticed some yucky yellow staining on my dishwasher. This has scared my paranoid self into thinking that our water is completely contaminated. Therefore, I bought this beautiful new Orange Brita pitcher at Target last weekend. It makes deliciously filtered water and I no longer feel as if the kids or I are going to develop some horrible disease.

And this is my lovely companion to the Brita. It's my Gaiam aluminum water bottle. I got this last summer, but it's kinda just been hanging out on top of the fridge. I have to let new things grow on me for a while. I like to stare at them and get used to them before I start REALLY using them. Now I carry this pretty water bottle with me everywhere and it's just one more step in my conservation effort. :)

Wow... this stuff... I discovered this stuff in little tubes (I love anything that's tiny sized) on the baby lotion aisle in Target last weekend and I thought... hmmm... I need that and upon reading the back of the box at a stoplight on the way home, I discovered that not only is it good for chapped bottoms, it's good for chapped lips. I immediately slathered it on. I LOVE chapstick! Anyone who knows me knows that. Love. It! And this stuff is excellent! Also, Emma has a chapped lip problem in winter time because she licks her lips and mouth area A LOT, and this stuff is great because it has no flavor, yet really protects her whole mouth area. LOVE IT!

And this, friends, is my beautiful new purple Blackberry Curve. It's lovely. I'm so in love with it that I bought it an expensive, hard cover so that hopefully I won't destroy it as I have all my others. It's perfectly perfect. :)

And this... I want to say it's my new favorite song, but that is such an understatement. I swear, the first time I heard it, I cried like a baby. Had you walked into the room, you would've been sure a death had just occured. And now, it gives me such goosebumps. I love it. It's amazing to me.

My Little Snaggletooth

Emma is a drama queen. For those of you that are friends from afar and haven't experienced her drama... she thrives on it.

But not in a mean drama way... in just an emotionally dramatic way.

She doesn't like change. She got this from her Mommy. I've never been a big fan of it either.

So, last night when she was brushing her teeth and discovered something amiss, she was quite.. bothered.

Emma: "Mommy!! Somefing's wrong wif my toof!!"

Me: "Huh?"

Emma: "It's hurting when I'm brushing it and it's moving all around."

Me: "Huh?"

I was NOT prepared for her to start losing teeth yet. Not at all. I love those little baby teeth.
Well, little did I know...
So. Does. Emma.

When I felt the wiggly little tooth, I assured her, "Awww, baby, all little girls and boys lose their baby teeth, it's part of growing up! You're getting to be a big girl!!"

Emma: {admist letting out an awful, horrible wail with tears literally springing sideways from her eyes} "I don't wanna lose my teef, I love my teef!!! They're my teef and I love them!!!"

Me: "Come on, let's go upstairs so you can see pictures of other little girls and boys who've lost their teeth"

So, after an hour of googling, "Kids losing baby teeth" and showing her all the pictures I could, she was finally a little okay with it. However, she was doing the scary cry/laugh the whole time we were looking at empty gums and freshly fallen out teeth.

It was all she talked about all night last night. She had to keep looking at it and having me look at it, but she did not want to wiggle it.

This was so bizarre to me, because what I remember of losing teeth is this... sitting in my desk at school wiggling them with my tongue all day long while blood poured out of my gums. I think I actually enjoyed the small amount of pain that it caused.

So, today, she showed everyone we came across the wiggly tooth and when I left her at my mom's house for a few hours, I had no idea it was going to fall out while I was gone, or I would never have left her! It did though, and here is my precious little snaggletooth...

Because of all the drama, I think this is going to have to be a higher than normal dollar tooth.

Maybe a 20? Enough for her to get a good toy or a new dvd?

Hints from Heloise

... No, not really. This comes from here...

I read this and thought you might like to know.

How to Get Rid of Rust

"Take rusty hand shovels and other items, dip them in a bowl filled with vinegar, and leave overnight. You can do this to shine pennies, too."

Okay, that was your helpful hint of the day from me! :)

Books, Books... and a few more Books..

I've added another page on this blog. It's called "All-Time Favorites". I'm a bit obsessed with books.. always have been. Books and babies....

So, if you, too, are in love with books, you can click on the page and it will show you my all-time faves, in case you'd like to know. Oh, and I'd love to know what yours are too, because I'm always looking for a new fave. ;)

And I'm putting ALL of my favorite books on there.

Children's books... cook book(s)... novels... exercise books... whatever.

So, anyway...

A Really Gross Story

Okay, before I tell you this really gross story, let me just tell you a little bit so that those of you who have never met me in person and been to my house may understand a little better.

I live in the middle of a field... on a farm... with lots of woods surrounding me.

Okay, with that said...

There are lots of field mice around. Lots. And I leave my garage door cracked at night so Marley (the dog) can sleep in the warmth of the garage, but also have the option to go in the yard to do his business.

Therefore, those field mice that are all around are also always seeking refuge in my nice (otherwise clean) garage.

Because of these little critters, I'm always finding "droppings" in my garage. It thoroughly grosses me out, but what grosses me out even more than the mice droppings are when Marley is locked in the garage and gets an upset stomach. He's a big dog and his piles are... BIG.

So, the garage door remains cracked for him so I don't have to fuss with his "piles".

Now, about a month ago, I got into my car one day ( I have a Honda Pilot, in case anyone wants to know for visualization purposes) and noticed the random McDonald's drink straw on my floor and it had holes in it. I thought... hmmm... I guess it got worn by my shoes from being on the floor.

I let it go and moved on with my life.

THEN I noticed some ketchup packets (McDonald's, again) in my car that had holes in them and all the ketchup was gone from them.

This was a little alarming.

I started wondering if possibly one of these little field mice had made it's way into my car, because that's what it looked like on the packet... mice chew marks.

Well, skip ahead to about two weeks ago.

I was on the way to the post office to mail off like.... 500 books to PBS peeps when I turned a corner and all of a sudden, this horrible, loud rattling sound started right behind the glove box of my car.

I seriously thought my car was about to blow up. I was so scared!

So, after leaving the post office, I went directly to Crumpler's, our local garage. I know the guy who owns it, so I asked him if I could borrow him for a minute. He said sure.. came to my car, listened to the noise.. told me it was the blower motor (the thing that powers the air conditioner/heater). He said something had blown up into it and I could bring my car back the next day for him to take care of it.

Well, I HATE doing car maintenance related activities and I discovered that as long as I kept the air/heat on low, the noise wasn't that loud, so I figured I'd just grin and bear it until I felt like going to get it fixed... which would probably in reality be when my dad finally took it to get fixed for me. ;)

So.... days turned into weeks... and then came last Friday.

Mama had wanted to keep the kids because she hadn't in a while, so I left them and just started wandering around town. Didn't have much to do, so I was trying to think of things to do. I remembered that the battery on my keyless entry remote had recently gone dead and boy is that annoying! So, I headed over to the Honda place to get the battery replaced.

While I was talking to the guy about replacing my battery, I remembered the blower motor.

"OH yeah", I said to the guy, "can you come listen to this noice, something's in the blower motor and I really need to get it taken care of".

So he did. And they had time to fix it for me, so I went to the lobby to read my book while they were taking care of my annoying car issues.

Well, about 30 minutes went by when I got a page to come back to the service desk.

This is what they showed me...

THAT is the blower motor from my car and in that blower motor are the remains of A MOUSE!!!

A MOUSE!!!

Thank God it is the dead of winter and not August. Can you imagine the smell??? I've been driving around with a dead mouse in the thing that blows air into the car! Oh my gosh, it makes me want to vomit.

The people in the service department were looking at me like I was some nasty person!

I was like... no... seriously, I live in the middle of a field. I can't keep the mice away, it's not even possible.

They all had their faces scrunched up looking at me like I smelled.

What the crap!

So, the guy I had been dealing with thought it was hilarious. He told me that there is a shelf that goes around the top of the blower motor, so probably when I turned that corner, the mouse had been sitting on that shelf and promptly fell into the motor.

DIS. GUS. TING.

So, now my car is mouse free.

All I can think of though is what if that mouse had started running around my car while I was driving down the road. I probably would have killed us all and smashed up everything in my wake trying to stop and get out of the car.

Object of the story: I have to get a cat.

How Could I Forget?!?!

Okay, remember how I told you I measured 7 inches of snow in our backyard on Saturday morning and then it was practically all gone the next day?

Well, here's the proof...


Saturday Morning:

Sunday Morning:

Yeah, we were robbed!

Anyway, here are the cute pictures of Noah getting to enjoy the snow a little, since all the other snow pictures are of Emma the night before when it actually all came down.

At first, he just preferred to hide out in the playhouse.

Noah's like his Mommy, he has to warm up to new things first before he totally embraces them. But he was observing the outside from the door. Bless his sweet little heart.

Emma joined him on the porch to get him to come out and play. He trusts his Sissy, so he went ahead and ventured out in it.

I just love this picture because Livi was trying to eat the snow off Noah's mitten. LOL.. that dog will drive you crazy. Noah has learned, though. Everyday when he and Emma play in the yard, Livi follows him around, jumping up and down on him, and Noah very clearly says to her, "Nu NU!" His version of "No, NO" It's the cutest thing ever because he gives her the Mean Mommy face and turns his back on her. It cracks me UP!


And Emma was trying to blast the camera with a snowball here... it must've either went over the top or to the side, because I do not see it.

This girl loves snow so much. It's such a shame we weren't born further north. ;)

Laundry... The Bane of my Existence

It seems as if I have something against putting the laundry away.

I don't mind washing it... at all...

Folding it... I don't like it, but I do it...

Putting it away... I wait until most of the clothes in the house are folded up and piled on every flat surface in the laundry room before I take the time to put it away.

Why? Why do I do this?

My Books

Since it's my goal to read a lot this year... and I really do mean A LOT...

I took my books off of my sidebar.

I know a lot of you could not care less, but in case you're one of the ones who might want to know what I am or have been reading, I've added a page to this blog and it's the top section on my sidebar.

It's titled "Books of 2010"

My goal is to read at least 100 books this year.

I'm on number 18 right now, so we'll see how this all works out for me by December. ;)

Happy Valentine's Day!

This was our Valentine that I sent out...

Noah got a teddy bear for Valentine's Day

And his shirt says, "My Mommy is my Valentine" :)

Emma got this little pocketbook for Valentine's Day...

She really loves it. I got it at a boutique that was going out of business before Christmas.

I love when boutiques go out of business and have clearing out sales. That sounds horrible, I hate that their "business dream" has to die, but I sure love the bargains that ensue! :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Bronson's Miracle

If you guys went and read about baby Bronson when I posted about him a few weeks ago, you must go to their blog and watch the video they posted today.

They have witnessed a true miracle of God in their family!

Winter Wonderland!!

Well, our snow started around 7:30 pm tonight.

They were really small flakes and you had to squint your eyes and look into the light to see them at all.

Well, this was thrilling! ha! Finally, our turn for the SNOOOOOOOOOOOWW!! So, I yelled out to Emma, she ran outside and tried so hard to see the snow, but she had to stare and get right in the light to see anything at all, but she too, was THRILLED! :)

So, of course I let her go out and play in it and she did... for probably 20 minutes.. just running around swirling and twirling in the yard.

Then it was bathtime. At this point, there was still no accumulation whatsoever on the ground, but you could see that the flakes were starting to get a bit bigger.

So into the bathtub she and Noah went.

30 minutes later, when bathtime was over and jammies were on, we looked out the backdoor and this is what we saw...

Holy Sh-nikes!!

I was dumbfounded. Seriously could. not. believe that this much snow had fallen in the 30 minute time frame that I had the kids in the tub.

So, I put Noah to bed (he was soooooo fussy) and I stripped Emma of her jammies and bundled her up and the rest was winter wonderland history!!! :) :) :) :)

This cracked me up when we went in for a brief warm-up in front of the fire... Livi's tag was completely coated in snow! ha!

We made a baby snowman and since he was a baby snowman, we put a paci in his mouth... and in case you're wondering, his nose is a pickle, his eyes are Hershey's kisses, and his hat is... a measuring cup. ;)

We've already got at least 3 inches and it's still coming down hard. That means you'll be getting another snow blog tomorrow!!!! WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Noah's Froggy Potty

Meet Noah's new potty...

Emma and I bought it for him yesterday at Target. I've been eyeballing that froggy potty for months now and I finally decided I was ready to buy it for him.

He was very excited about it, especially when I stripped him down for the big introduction.

He had to explore it though.

He wasn't sure if it was a weird stepping stool, so he tried to climb it at first...

He decided that didn't seem quite right, so I showed him how to pee pee in the potty.

He liked that...

He didn't pee pee in it yet, but he has learned how to say pee pee in the potty. He says, " pee pee in a paaa-eeee" and he says it in his very high pitched sweet little voice. It's quite precious.

He also carried the potty around with him from room to room all day. I think it's his new favorite "toy".

p.s. Don't you love that pokey outty belly in that last pic? Ha! He's gonna be soooo mad at me when he sees this when he's older. ;)

The Princess and the Frog

Emma has been wanting to see The Princess and the Frog since it came out in December and I've been wanting to take her.

Things kept on coming up, though, so it just never happened.

Yesterday, it finally did.

We had a girl's day.

We dropped off Noah at Mimi's house and then we headed to town.

I didn't tell Emma we were going until we were almost there, so she was really surprised!

Then, when we got there, the theater was virtually empty. I guess Wednesday at 3:15 is not a popular time for movie going. Who knew?

Our particular theater was completely empty!

We had the whole place to ourselves. So, I picked my spot where I wanted to sit and I let Emma enjoy herself. She roamed the theater, hanging from the hand rails and sitting in different spots every few minutes.

She thoroughly enjoyed herself and I personally thought the movie was AWESOME! I loved it!

Paperback Swap

Guys, if you like reading AT ALL, you really need to check out this site...

www.paperbackswap.com

Honestly, I'm so in love with this site. It. is. in. cred. i. ble!

I've gotten rid of so many unwanted books (i.e. textbooks from college, teaching manuals, trade sized paperback books) and I'm getting BRAND NEW and LIKE NEW books that I've had my eyes on for a long time.

The site just really goes to show that one person's trash is another person's treasure. Because the books I'm getting rid of are books I care nothing about and the books I'm getting in exchange are brand new, like new bestsellers and books by authors that I love.

It's AWESOME!

Oh, and the books in that picture are the books that I've gotten in the past week and I have another twenty-something books on the way. I also still have close to 40 credits so when the books on my wish list come available, I'll be able to get them immediately, FOR FREE!!!!!

All it costs you is what it costs to mail out your own books when they're requested and since they go media mail, it's super cheap.

Love it! :)

Nights in Rodanthe and ... a Milk Dud

Warning: This blog has the potential to TOTALLY gross you out!

So, if you are easily disgusted, just go ahead and click off of this blog.

Ok, now for my story...

Tonight, my mom came over and we decided to watch, "Nights in Rodanthe". I read the book last night, so I was anxious to watch the movie and let me assure you... they butchered it, as they usually do books that are transformed into movies. However, I still quite enjoyed it, but was it as good as the book? No. The movies never, ever are. Ever.

So, the kids were running around like wild banchees the whole time we were trying to enjoy the movie, so finally, I banished them to Emma's room.

This lead to wonderful silence with just the distant sounds of their playing.

Perfect.

Then, my sweet little morsel, Noah, ran -buck naked- into the living room. I love it! I love a cute little nakey butt running around. Nothing has the potential to make me smile like that does.

Noah has this thing about him... when he does something naughty, he loves to show it to you. Point it out. Tell you all about it. It's this little trait of his that makes it impossible to get mad at him when he is a naughty little fella.

I mean, look at this cuteness...

Could you ever, for any reason get mad at something that cute... especially when he's being that cute NAKED?? No way. No how.

So, when he darted over to me with a very serious look upon his face and handed me this...

I thought... why thank you sweet boy. However, his look was serious and he was grunting. I thought it was... a milk dud? A chocolate chip? Good thing I smelled it before I popped it into my mouth.

When I smelled it, he turned and pointed to the hallway outside of Emma's bedroom, and this is what I saw...

A big piece of POOP.

Oh my. My cute little nakey boy has pooped in the hallway.

But that wasn't it. And Noah is who told me this. Upon my seeing the poop in the hallway, his paci filled mouth started making very insistent grunts, his face became more serious, and he pointed very urgently towards Emma's room.

I thought... Oh My. Let me go see.

So, I followed him as he ran as fast as his chubby little legs would go straight into Emma's closet where I saw this...
Nice.

I guess he taught ME!

I don't care, I'll still let him run around naked, it's so stinkin (literally) cute!


Bless his sweet little heart.

I think he thought he might get a pop on the tushy for this, because all the while I was cleaning up his messy mess, he was hiding in Emma's playhouse tent, peeking out the door flaps watching me very cautiously.

I swear, he is so precious, I'd take 10 more just like him.... and 10 more of Emma too, for that matter. :)

Noah-isms

There are things about my children that I am desperate to preserve before they grow out of them and I can no longer remember and I want to. Oh, I want to remember all their little idiosyncracies! I wish I had recorded every little sweet thing Emma ever said, but I didn't. I want to record some of Noah's now... on here, so I will always have the sweetest ones as part of my memory.

First of all, a few months ago, around Emma's birthday, she was walking around one morning singing, "Happy Birthday, Baby, Happy Birthday, Baby" over and over to herself. She just likes singing and that was her song of choice that morning. Well, Noah was still only muttering random sounds and sometimes "mama" but that was really it. Well, that morning, Noah started singing, "Happyyy Bahbeeee" "Happyyy Baaahhhhbbbeeee" It was the sweetest thing, I wish I had it recorded, because he doesn't do it so much anymore and he's not good at doing things on demand. But oh, it was so sweet him singing over and over all day, "Happpyyyyy Bahhhbee".

His Words:
yas = pacifier
sooz = shoes
waa-ee = water
ilk = milk
oos = juice
baaa = bath
ahh by = a bite (when he says bite, he wants a bite of food, not he wants to bite you. :)
iss= kiss
ny ny = night night
gyeee = granny
ma-eeyy = marley
eeema! = emma
issy = sissy
bawww = ball


* and oh, there are so many others, I know there are, I just can't recall...

Other words he says a lot... and correctly:
mama, mimi, papa, dog, want
boo! ( and he says this so sweet, he puckers his little lips and says, "boooo" and it sounds like "bew" so sweet)
he's said Mommy a couple of times (when prompted by Emma)

He also does baby sign language. The ones he uses a lot are:
tapping his fingers together = more
tapping his fingers to his lips = food
squeezing his hand = milk
thumb to his lips = drink

He's also super stubborn, so sometimes, if he's tired and wants something really bad, he'll just grunt or scream, while pointing at it. :)

I Need Some Inspiration

And there's no one better to get it from than Joel Osteen...

Sometimes God may lead you in an entirely different way, just so you can give somebody a smile, just so you can say hello. Your very countenance can give people hope. God can cause people to look at you and see His love and compassion.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:12

It doesn't matter where you are right now. You may have made mistakes. You may have failed a thousand times. But understand that it does not change your value in God's eyes. You are not here on earth by accident. God has a plan and a purpose for your life. He has an assignment for you. And it's not just to drift around in mediocrity.

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.

Isaiah 42:1

The next time tempatation comes, the first thing you should do is pray. Get God involved in your situation. We cannot defeat bad habits in our own strength. Ask God to help you. When you feel your emotions getting out of hand and you are tempted to rudely tell somebody off, pray right then and there under your breath, "God, I'm asking You to help me. Give me the grace to keep my mouth closed and the courage to walk away."

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 2:18

I wonder what our world would be like if every person found some way to do good every single day. What would our cities be like? What would our offices be like? What would our schools be like, if we made it a priority to brighten somebody else's day, to do something good for somebody else?

When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Luke 14:13-14

Baby Bronson

Oh gosh. My heart is hurting right now. This precious mother... her baby boy is fighting for his life.

Please pray.

Lord help her. Help Bronson.

She did what I have done SO MANY TIMES.

She put her two baby boys in the bathtub in just inches of water. She went to get their diapers and clothes for afterbath when she heard a scream.

You can only imagine...

I ALWAYS do this. I am admitting. I know you're not supposed to leave babies in the tub. And I only leave for seconds at a time, but that's still no excuse. Never again.

Bless her heart. Go to her blog. Read their story. Pray for Bronson. Pray for God to make him whole. Pray for his mother's guilt to be lifted off her heart.