last night

Last night was horrible.  Maybe the worst night ever.

It was Thursday, our fourth day back in a semi-normal routine.  We had Tae Kwon Do.  The kids were tired and ready for the weekend.

This past weekend, Brad successfully got Jack to eat salmon by telling him that it gave him bear-strength.  And he totally bought it.  I'm not sure Jack's ever eaten as much meat in one sitting as he did the other night.  It was amazing.  And he was soooo proud of himself!

So, when I made a random trip to Costco, Brad asked me to pick up some salmon.  I don't eat salmon, but it looked pretty good.  Covered in butter and dill, it looked promising.  It was going to go bad if we didn't cook it last night, so after Tae Kwon Do, I came home and threw it in the oven.  Jack immediately started making faces and saying that he didn't like that kind of salmon.

Hannah doesn't like salmon, so I made her something else to eat.  I think leftover spaghetti, but it really doesn't matter - it was something she asked for and then declined.

Jack wouldn't eat salmon.  Hannah wouldn't eat her dinner.  She was sent to her room for crying and throwing a fit.  Jack wouldn't eat the salmon even with the seasonings cut off.  I felt bad, and I was miserably unhappy that, once again, dinner was a huge disaster.  

Jack said he didn't like it and didn't want to eat it.  I took it away and made him half a sandwich on the yummy croissants he loves so much.  He started crying that he wanted the salmon back because he wanted the bear-strength.  Getting the salmon back after his initial crying fit was not an option.  Cue harder crying.  Now he wouldn't eat the sandwich I made him either.  And Hannah was still not eating her dinner.

Both kids went to bed over-tired and probably very hungry.  No story.  No extra snuggles.  I'm pretty sure I cried as I cleaned up the THREE uneaten dinners from the table.  And put them to bed.

I think we need a Tae Kwon Do hiatus.  It's too much.  It makes the rest of our Tuesday and Thursday nights miserable.  We also need something that all four of us like to eat.  

Because last night was hard.  So hard that Brad and I put on our pajamas and went to bed at 9:40.  Both of us.  No words - we were speechless.  

And people say it doesn't get any easier as they get older.

Please let them be lying.

2014

Really, it's very simple.  My new year's resolutions are never very shocking or original.

They're basic.  They don't change much from year to year.

I just want to be better.  To do better.

I want to be the best wife, mother, daughter, friend, teacher I can be.  That's it.

This year - I'm trying to focus on Patience.  Joy.  Consistency.  

Patience - I rush.  All the time.  I notice that I'm always rushing my kids.  I'm usually running late, and then I get stressed about being on time, and I rush everyone around me.  Tensions are always high before we actually get out the door.  This has to change.  Our children are little.  They are slow-moving.  I need to adapt.

Joy - I'm an anxious person.  I stress myself out over stupid, small things.  I get overwhelmed by the future, by schedules, by things to do.  I tend to focus on the negative or the tiny little thing that could have been a tad bit better, and it overshadows everything else. I need to choose joy.  To focus on the present and be happy.  One day at a time.

Consistency - I'm an inconsistent person.  I change my mind when the wind blows.  Or when an adorable child smiles or bats his/her eyelashes.  Or when a child whines or cries.  Namely, my children.  But other peoples' kids, too.  I don't like the whining or crying, so I cave.  And then it gets worse.  This is part of the reason our children are unruly, and I know this to be true.  I'm working on it.  Knowing is half the battle, and we're making changes.  What we say first, is what has to go.  

These are my goals.  So far, I still have a lot to work on.

Nighttime Shovel Session

I don't know why this is the usual for our family, but we tend to shovel at night.  There's something about a quiet, snowy evening that I enjoy.  It seems somewhat magical to bundle up, head outside, and watch the snow coming down against the neighborhood lights.

It could also be that after Brad gets home, it's usually dark.  And sometimes that's when the snow stops - and we're big believers in waiting to shovel until the snow stops.  Well, Brad is anyway.  I would be out there after a couple of inches if I wanted to do it all myself, but who does?

So anyway - we go out at night and shovel.  I'm sure our neighbors love it :)

Last week, Brad had a great idea that he wanted to test, so he jimmy-rigged an industrial fan we bought when we had a leak in our basement to a trolley cart, plugged it in, and tried to blow the snow off of our driveway.  It took awhile to perfect the model inside, and then we took it out, only to figure out that it did not work the way that Brad had envisioned it in his mind.  In fact, all it really did was blow really cold snow into your face as you tried to shovel the driveway.

I ended up turning it off, and we worked to clear the driveway the old-fashioned way.  Jack was a big helper.

Hannah - not-so-much.

After I got her bundled up and outside (no small task, I assure you), she waddled onto the driveway and seemed okay until snow hit her face, and then she immediately wanted to go back inside to finish watching "The Grunch".  I think I might have mentioned in a previous post that Hannah is slightly obsessed with The Grinch That Stole Christmas, but she calls him the Grunch instead.  So inside she went.

Nonetheless, we had some good family fun.  It's amazing how easy it is to relax and have a good time and not worry about the ticking clock when you know you don't have school the next day.

A Bouncing Break

On Friday, the littles and I got up, got showered, and headed out for a break from being kept indoors all week.  We needed to get out - desperately.  So I took them to Sport Bounce, and then we went to school for a little bit so I could drop off all the work I'd done at home and get set up for Monday morning.  We stopped by McDonald's to pick up some lunch on our way home and had a little picnic on the family room floor.  It wasn't a lot, but it was enough.

The bouncing helped them burn off some energy and I could tell that, for the most part, they were having a good time.  Hannah wasn't crazy about the slides this time (could you tell?), but she seemed to think one of them was better than the rest, so we spent a lot of time climbing up and coming back down on that one:)

And now it's time.  I've procrastinated all weekend.  I must start report cards.

Library Corner

Since we're currently working on a few home improvement projects, most revolving around our little lovelies, I thought I'd share the last home improvement project that we completed in September.  Back then, I took pictures to be able to share on the blog, and then time got away from me.  But it definitely deserves to be shared:)

It all started about a year and a half ago when I saw a tutorial on Pinterest on how to use rain gutters to create bookshelves.  I ran the idea past Brad for the empty corner of our playroom, and he was up for the challenge.  We agreed the lonely corner needed a little something, and I wanted it to be a little library for the kids.

{See the empty corner?}

So here's how that Pinterest-fail went down.  I went online and ordered the materials we needed for corner bookshelves.  Then Brad drove to the home improvement store to pick up the materials after I received an email that said materials were in stock and ready for pick-up.  That turned out to be a big lie.  So after driving an hour and a half and coming back with half of the necessary materials and speaking to various people on the phone about the lack of customer service, we were no closer to having adorable bookshelves.  

Brad drove one more time out to the store when they believed they had gathered the correct missing pieces; they had not.  We returned everything and attempted to order materials through an online warehouse.  They sent us the wrong materials.  In addition to that, the rain gutters seemed really bulky, much bigger than they appeared in photos, and flimsy.  We weren't loving anything about this idea anymore, so we bailed. 

And for several months I window-shopped and browsed the Internet for better options.  It seemed like maybe we would end up with Ikea spice racks, painted white, but Brad wasn't sure that they would look good in the corner.  Too much wasted space, he thought.

So I went back to the drawing board.  

Ikea has these really nice picture ledges, but they were either too short or too long for our walls, and they didn't meet at a corner.  I showed them to Brad, and he really liked them.  But he also knew he'd have to do a lot of work to get them to look the way we envisioned.  He was game:)

Ensue a shopping trip to Ikea in which I lost my phone.  Or rather - my phone was stolen.  Yeah, you remember the story.

Once the picture ledges were home, we Brad had lots of measuring, cutting, painting, sanding, etc. to do before the shelves were ready.  Especially since the walls that are supposed to be a perfect corner were not.  And because Brad was once a little boy, he figured that at some point, the kids would try to climb the bookshelves like a ladder, which would cause destruction to the wall and the shelves.  So Brad made the shelves like a ladder.  They are strong enough to hold the weight of the kids should they one day to decide to climb up, but shhhh...we didn't tell them this:)  I failed to take pictures of all of this hard work - I'm not sure why, but I'm sure it had to do with two little lovelies who needed or wanted something at the time.

But I did take pictures of the finished product.  Brad is super-proud of this corner, and he should be.  It took so many hours of work, but it looks so nice when we come up the stairs and look into the playroom.  It might be our favorite corner in the entire house:)

See for yourself:

It's a happy place in our home, and we love it!

Snow Days and Chilly Temps

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted.  Last week was the first, full week I worked since Winter Break, and it reminded me how exhausting it is to be a full-time teacher and a full-time mommy at the same time.  At the end of the day, as much as I want to keep up with the blog and tell our funny stories, my mind needs a break.  I enjoy writing, but it's work to bring it all together.  To get an idea, pull together photos, and write - it requires attention and focus.  Most nights I can barely get on my pajamas and climb into bed, let alone pull together a decent blog post.

Some of this revolves around the fact that Hannah is definitely two, and by this, I mean she has been testing us in the worst way since Christmas.  Dinner time is a nightly unpleasant experience - between picky-eater Jack and stubborn Hannah, it never goes well, and it's difficult to prepare a family dinner that you know is going to end in tears.  And some nights I'm worried it'll be our tears from sheer exhaustion and frustration.  Maybe it's okay to eat macaroni and cheese every night to avoid such antics?  We tend not to think so, but is the opposite worth it?

Anyway, when dinner is over and we clean up, it's time to get the kids ready for bed.  They're usually tired and we're usually rushed to get them to bed on time, and by the time we leave Jack's room with them all brushed, washed, read to, and tucked in, we have nothing left.  Maybe a few minutes on Pinterest or some mindless TV-watching before we fall asleep to do it all over again the next day.

I'm just saying it isn't easy...  We wouldn't give it up for anything in the world, don't get me wrong.  But it's the hardest kind of work.  To be on and kind and patient when inside your inner monologue is going crazy and wishing for just two minutes alone that don't involve going to the bathroom.

And then there's this week, where I haven't had to work a single day.  Which is nice.  In fact, I'm almost entirely caught up with my school work - just in time to start report cards:)  But it also means we've had a winter with lots of time together and inside.  I've worked a total of 8 days this month, so that means all the other days have been days when we're home together, and for the most part, inside because of the uncharacteristically cold weather.  And this comes directly after Winter Break, when we were home for two weeks together as well.  I've seen The Grinch approximately 243 times.  Poured numerous glasses of juice and opened millions of packets of fruit snacks.  We've existed solely on showering with the little lovelies (minus last week) to keep them clean and avoid bath night.  I've read the same stories over and over and over again.  And I'm going a little stir-crazy.  I'm just being honest.

So I've been AWOL on the blog because at the end of these crazy days, it seems like a little too much.  But I'm trying to get back into it - I have many things to share.  Funny stories and pictures and new year's resolutions.  I know, new year's resolutions the last week of January seems a little silly, but still.  I have them and I'm sharing.

Now excuse me while I go put on another cartoon and pour more glasses of juice.

I saw this post the other day - it's a good reminder.  Maybe it will bring you a new perspective as well.  I definitely needed it:)

Dylan Day

On New Year's Eve, the kids and I watched Dylan for the first half of the day while my little sis and Uncle John had to go to work.  I woke up bright and early to spend my morning with the little mister. Ryan and John dropped Dylan off at about 7:30, and my little lovelies weren't waking up over break until about 8-8:30.  Jack woke up shortly after Dylan arrived, and then Hannah stumbled down a little while later.  We had a good morning, playing with old baby toys and snuggling on our visitor.

Then Dylan got sleepy and we put him down for a nap in Hannah Bear's bedroom.  We had to set up our old Pack 'n Play since we'd just switched Hannah over to a toddler bed.  Not-so-great planning on my part, since I knew we were watching Dylan, but just didn't put two-and-two together in time.  Oh well.  The good news is that Dylan went right to sleep - snuggled with his bink and a lovey, he was out until 11:10!  Ryan couldn't believe he took such a good nap, but this Mama knows how to make a room dark and snuggly for naptime - it's one of my strengths:)

Anyway, when Dylan woke up, it was time to take some pictures.  We got right to work, and here's what we came up with:

 Hannah tootsies

 We spent a lot of our time mastering the stair-crawl:)

It was a fun day for sure, and I was quite surprised with how quickly time passed.  Before we knew it, Rypie came and scooped Dylan up to take him home for nap time.

My little lovelies can't get enough of Baby Dylan, and neither can I:)

Wordless Wednesday

{my little lovelies, in lights}

{guess who likes peppermint?}

Our New Year

Our new year had a sad start.  My 47 year-old cousin, JJ, passed away on New Year's Day.  After battling cancer, surviving surgeries, and trying to find his way in a "new normal," he's no longer in pain or suffering from his illness.  But my poor Uncle John...it is for him that my heart is breaking.  Our family has lost another member, someone we grew up around, spent holidays with at my Grandpa's, and visited during our family reunions, but my Uncle John has lost his firstborn, his eldest son.

No one should ever have to say goodbye to their own children.  To have to watch them suffer and to be powerless to stop whatever comes their way.  It is so very sad.

I traveled to Cleveland this past weekend with my mom and dad and my sister and nephew.  We spent time with family and went to JJ's funeral services.  We supported my uncle, Aunt Lolly, and JJ's siblings as best we could.

But it's not enough.

When something like this happens, it's never enough.

JJ was loved and will be remembered.

And while my Uncle John will never be the same, he will be okay.  We are here for you, Uncle John.  We love you - and we are so very sorry that you've had to go through this last year.  We hope for nothing but peace and happiness for you in this new year.

{Uncle Bob, Uncle John, my mom, and Aunt Kathy - all the siblings together}