A typical sight

Tiger often climbs into Sparky's bed, sometimes during the day, and sometimes during the night when he needs a little comfort. Sometimes they wrestle, sometimes they snuggle, and sometimes they read. As badly as Sparky wants a room of his own, I know that one day he will miss these special brother moments that come from sharing a room with a little brother.

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.