Daily Life

Here my little man entertains me with a song he entitled "Crusher". "It's about a Gila monster who meets a human." Tiger had been home sick for a couple of days and I was happy to have him up and rejoining normal life.

Today

1. My little man is home sick from school for the second day in a row. Poor little guy, although I think he's on the upswing now which is very happy for all of us.

2. With little man home sick I have been forced to stay home and get some stuff done. Mind you, I'm still not getting the things done that I really need to get done (namely painting and whatnot on the house), but I have been able to do the everyday regular things that I haven't been able to do much of lately (namely cooking and laundry).

3. I am sick and tired of thinking about, talking about, worrying about, and working on my house. Because of this I am missing moments and opportunities all around me and I don't like it. I don't know what the next chapter of our lives has in store, but I am definitely ready for it to begin.

4. I just spent a good half hour or so looking at old pictures on the computer and this has gotten me thinking. First of all, my kids are growing way too fast and it just killed me a little bit inside. Secondly, I realized how much I love looking at pictures of our everyday life. You know, piles of laundry in the background, Tupperware all over the floor, stuff like that. I think I have gotten away from that in the last few years or so because my house is usually a mess or just plain ugly and I never want that side of things to be shown if I am going to post a picture. But, by avoiding those embarrassing things I am not capturing our true life and I think that if I don't change this then I am going to regret it one day. I have never really liked this house a whole lot, but for the past (almost) 11 years it has been our home and our reality and all my kids have known. It deserves to be documented.

5. I have made the goal to take a true to life picture each day. One moment in the day that captures our regular life, piles of laundry and all. Sometimes I will post them, sometimes I won't, but the important thing is for me to take the picture so that my kids and I will remember these days and this life we live.

Birthday Dinner Weekend

Sparky's favorite food is Brats so we invited the family to join us for dinner while Sparky gorged himself on German meats. You know, just trying to embrace our German heritage.

Good times and good food. Well, except for Chad who apparently ate something less than ideal for his "delicate" system and found himself feeling not so well later that night.

The next day was Sparky's actual birthday, which was really a little anti-climatic because he had already received most of his presents the day before and of course we had already had a birthday celebration with the family. However, Grandma had given Sparky his birthday box full of birthday party paraphernalia and so we had to make use of the goods. And we did. We partied to the best of our abilities for a lazy Sunday evening.

Anyone can just blow out their candles, but it takes a smarty pants 13 year old to blow them out with a party blower.

 A few fun facts about him: Besides loving Brats, he also loves fish. He has a 5 gallon fish tank that he has been working on for over a year now and for his birthday we bought him a 20 gallon tank. He is chomping at the bit to get that one set up. He also loves to play soccer and Minecraft. He is a great big brother, a great friend who is kind and accepting of everyone, and pretty delightful to have around. I think we'll keep him.

13

That was then

This is now

I love him.

Happy Birthday!

Love

17 Years

 

It's a super romantic one this year. First, Doug had to go into work early and then proceeded to have meetings all day long and will most likely work a bit late. Then, we'll either work on the house or do something with the kids. Can you feel the romance?

 

Today

1. The kids have been back at school for 3-4 days now and I have to admit that the peaceful day times are delightful. I miss them, but I don't really miss them.

2. It turns out that I don't have a lot of motivation to get moving when there isn't anyone else in the house. There is no one to hold me accountable for the time that I waste. I am hoping that I can change this. At some point something is going to need to get done.

3. I have been having a lot of crazy/disturbing dreams lately. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me that I am stressed and that I am just ignoring it. It's true. I feel like once again we have come to a standstill on working on the house. Life gets in the way and the kids are busy, plus there's the previously mentioned fact that so far I haven't been utilizing my day times very well yet. Must keep the goal in mind.

4. Tiger did great on his first day of school. He was able to pull it together by the time he got to school. He even left his backpack on the bus and I thought for sure that that would send him over the edge again, but it didn't. He was able to run back to the bus and get it and then the rest of the day went very smooth. He came home a very happy boy. He has still had little bouts of anxiety every morning since, but nothing like the first day. It has all been very manageable. Now my only concern is whether or not he is actually eating his lunch each day. I told him today that he had to bring home whatever he didn't eat so that I could see how he is doing. We'll see if he follows through.

5. In three days my Sparky becomes an official teenager. It just kills me.

Here's the video once again of Sparky's special "crawl". I could watch it for hours.

Things that make me go "Hmmmm"

There is a fruit fly that lives in my bathroom. Every day I kill it, but yet every day there is still a fruit fly flying around as if it owns the joint. It is annoying.

First Day of School 2013

 Smarty pants 7th grader on his way to Middle School.

 Delightful 5th grader so excited for a new year.

 Sweet boy of a 1st grader. We knew today would be rough and he tried his very best to keep everything under control. The anxiety was high, the panic was real, but he was determined to beat them both. We offered to drive him to school, but he wasn't having it. He wanted to ride the bus with his friends.

He made sure to have his water bottle to help wash the anxiety down.

 And he did it. So proud of my little man. I am definitely going to miss these guys during the day, but I know this is going to be a great year for all 3 of my little pickles.

Vacation Day. . .whatever

Honestly, vacation week was kind of a blur because Doug and I spent every day working like crazy so by the time the evening rolled around when it was time to have fun with the kids, I was totally exhausted. I know that one of the nights my sister organized a family trip to the state fair and they were kind enough to take the kids, where they had the time of their lives, but since I wasn't there I don't have any pictures of that. Another night we took the kids fishing. The boys just love to fish. Woo likes it sometimes, but more because she doesn't like to be left out, not because she's just dying to catch a fish. I don't even remember what we did the other two nights, so obviously those weren't very memorable, although I'm sure we had a good time and I'm sure they involved ice cream. So, to finish up the vacation posts, here are some fishing pictures.

 King of the rocks

 Woo's expression explains clearly how she felt about fishing this night.

Happy fishing boy.

 Family fishing time.

 Sparky fished a little bit, but he was more interested in examining the water life up close. Plus, he and Doug had already gotten up early that morning to go fishing, so he was good.

I love my goofy kid. He certainly does not lack in personality.

Vacation Day 4

The kids were expecting a beach this year and sadly, this was the best we could do for them. To make matters worse, it wasn't even sunny or super warm. We will definitely make it up to them someday in the future.

 Trying out the new boogie board.

 Brothers being cute.

 Happiness is chasing seagulls. As long as there were seagulls to chase, he was running, and boy was he fast.

 This girl would live and breathe water if she could.

 Playing in the sand.

 Of course there was lots of splashing,

 and swimming,

and Tiger pretending to be a Zombie. You know, the typical beach stuff.

Vacation Day 3

Go Karts, Bumper Boats, and Miniature Golf

Vacation report days 1 & 2

We had ourselves a little staycation this year where we worked like mad on our house all day long and then took the kiddos to do super fun things in the evening. It was both productive and tons of fun at the same time. The hardest part however was trying to keep our energy up for the kids at night because we were exhausted. The first day we got up early and went to breakfast, then we hit the mall and watched a movie and shopped our little hearts out. Then we went out to dinner. When we finally got home we were beat and so we all just crashed and had ourselves a mellow evening. The second day of vacation we drove a bit to a walking park that we have never been to before. It was gorgeous! We all fell in love with it immediately. Of course it didn't help that the weather was absolutely perfect. We will definitely be going back there again and again.

 A lovely bridge found in the Asian garden.

 The family at the lookout tower. Tiger wasn't too interested in looking out.

 The view from the lookout tower.

 Brotherly love. Tiger just loves his big brother and Sparky does a good job of being a big brother. They call themselves Bros.

 Tiger never misses an opportunity to be weird.

 Sparky found this tree by the lake that was just begging to be climbed.

 In one of the gardens there was this beautiful field of sunflowers. As soon as I saw it I knew that these kids were going to find themselves posing for some pictures.

 Oh no, the dreaded sun came out. I don't know what it is, but Sparky in particular is incapable of taking a picture if the sun is out or if it is in any way bright. He is suddenly unable to open his eyes as if the sun is burning holes into each one of them. He's trying his best in this picture, but alas Tiger has decided that he is unable to open his eyes as well. Woo just thinks her brothers are the funniest.

 Tiger then decided that he needed to find his Zen.

 Perhaps if I had them stand up? So close.

 I give up. This is really all they wanted to do anyway. 

I also gave my camera to Woo and Tiger and let them have fun taking some pictures. Here are some of the the results: 

 All in all it was a glorious day and we were all glad we made the trip. We will definitely be going back again, but next time we'll get there earlier so that we have more time to explore.