Life on the other side

Holy heck... it has been a whirlwind this past month!   Let me do a little catching up, I guess.  I may come back later and go into detail more (like about our trips etc) but we'll see.  I spent my flight back home from Orlando (for FUEL)  writing out a daily schedule.  Some of my goals for my schedule are:

• Blog 30 min/day
• Run 30 min/3x's a week
• Read 30 min/night before bed
• Scrapbook about 2 hrs/week (or two times a week?)
• Ride 1-2x's/week

So.   This past month.  

• We closed on the house Thursday, July 29th. WOOT WOOT!  We got in and immediately I started painting the kids' rooms.  There was a bit of drama with the power etc... I'll have to write more about that later HAHA!
• That Saturday, Ryan, Eloise and I headed to Dallas for the week for Young Living's Convention.  We had an awesome time, but I was so ready to get back to Michigan and MOVE!
• We got back home Thursday night and drove back out to the new house to check out the painting.  We hired a painter to paint the living room and upstairs loft.   It. Looked.  Amazing. 
• Friday we moved some things out to the new house and I finished up painting a bit. 
• Saturday... MOVING VANS CAME!   Boy they were super fast!  Totally worth the cost. 
• We spent a week in the house getting settled.   The first night in the new house, Porter and Hudson slept together in Hudson's new full-sized bed.   It was so sweet but it kind of broke my heart to know that they felt unsettled.  I know its normal, and I love that they felt that each other was their security.  
• On August 15th we left AGAIN for a week up in Mackinaw City.  It was a trip we'd planned before we knew we were moving, and Ryan's uncle was flying in from Texas to camp the week with us.  We couldn't miss it.   I hate to admit, though, that my heart just wasn't into the trip.  We had a great time, but I was really just itching to be home and getting settled in.  Not to mention that I'd barely had time to work in the past month and felt like I was in a working mood and really really really wanted to just go home and hole up in my office.  Sick, right? I'll write more about the trip later :) 
• We got home from Mackinaw and had a busy week.... the McKenney's and Kilchers came over Monday, I spent Tuesday at the barn and back in Jackson, I had a few team webinars that week, and we met with a builder to have our mudroom/laundry room addition built.  Oh, and Ryan met with a realtor back at our old house to get it listed for sale.  AND we had Home Depot out to measure to put in wood floors here at the new house.  Yeah... this carpet has GOT to go.   I don't know how people live with carpet.  Ruby keeps peeing on it.  Duncan keeps pooping on it.  The kids are spilling shit on it left and right, and I've dropped paint on it already.  Fail. 
• We took the kids on an "official" back to school shopping trip. We had a lot of fun.  The boys picked out matching shoes.   I found lots of cute things for the girls- as if they need anything new HAHA! 
• The last week of summer we tried to cram everything in.  We went to Independence Lake Blue Heron Bay waterpark/splash pad on Thursday.  I felt like we just needed to go do something fun.  Ryan was mowing the lawn (it takes freakin' 5 hours!) so I loaded up the 4 kids and we went!  I was a bit bummed at first... seeing all these other moms with groups of friends and I was there alone.  But whatever.   I ended up chatting with a dad whose daughter was playing with Amelia and heard his whole story about moving back from Chicago and he's an actor and we talked about challenges of working from home/for yourself etc.   Then Porter realized a little girl he'd been playing with was in his grade at his new school.  SOOO I mustered up guts and went up to her mom and introduced myself and chatted with her for quite a bit.  
• The next day we went to Erika's and hung out at her pool.   The boys had Eian, our neighbor at our old house, come stay the night.  
• I finally got the boys registered for school... whew!   We went to their open houses and I'm super impressed with their schools.  I'm a little leery of P's teachers, so we'll see how that goes (he has a male teacher... and his last male teacher wasn't so great, so I'm just totally skeptical of male teachers HAHA!).   Hudson's teacher has been teaching awhile and she seems like she has a good, firm personality for Hudson which will be great.   Their media centers have iMacs in them... like 15....whaaa?  Sweet.  They also have this local Farm to School Program where one week a month they bring in fresh fruit/veggies etc from the community as a part of their lunches.  It seems pretty awesome!
• Amelia started preschool today and she LOVED it.  I knew she's be great.  She went into her class with no problem at all.  She's so ready.  I'm not. 
• Eloise is getting so big! She's the smiliest thing ever.  She LOVES her big siblings and they can make her smile and laugh so hard.  

WHEW!  So that's it for now... I have a lot I want to go into more detail about, so I'll have to get my butt to work on that 30 min/day blogging!  

lazy days of summer is a lie

If you're on Facebook, or a blogger, or even on Pinterest.... you'll recognize the posts I'm about to mention.  I hop on Pinterest and I see millions of posts about Summer Bucket Lists and fun summer activities and crafts and places to go.  I have a Summer Fun board and the past 2 years I've created our own Summer Bucket List of some sort to keep our days full.  I crave the busy, the full days, the crammed in activities and outings.  And then, on the other hand, you will come across posts talking about "screw the lists" let's let our kids have a summer like we had when we were kids in 1975... let them run rampant through the neighborhood and not \\\\\\\\\\\\\\see them until dinner.  Let's do nothing all day but relax and enjoy each other.  Forget bucket lists... forget millions of fun, planned activities.

I envy those people who are able to do that because in all honesty, I think the lazy days of summer is a big fat lie.

What brought me to think about this, you ask?  Well.  This morning I woke up and knew I had to get the kids out of the house or I'd lose my mind.  I had already decided I'd take them to my grandma's pool so that's what we did... by 9:30 we were on the road, hit up the grocery store for snacks, drinks and lunchables, and swam until around 12:30.  You'd think this was a relaxing type of morning... right?

Wrong.  

These are my children we're talking about.   The entire time they were at the pool- my boys, my 9 year old niece and Amelia, I heard my name called less than 387 times and I had to get after Porter about 436 times.  They begged me to get in.  I got in.  Then they (mainly my kids) only shouted after me to watch this or help me do this or look at this or this person is doing this!!   Oh. My. WORD.   So 12:30 rolls around and I'm exhausted.  

We get home and I send everyone upstairs- nap for Amelia and reading time for the boys.  An hour passes (as well as 5 or 6 interruptions from the boys asking when they can come down... holy mother eff.... can I get ONE HOUR??) and not long after, Amelia is up. We watch a little tv to wake up and then head outside.  Take out pizza, the neighbor kiddo Eian, the hose and kiddie pools for the evening line up.

You'd think this would entertain them, right?

Wrong.

These are my children you're talking about.  Stops quirting your brother.  Share the slide.  Don't push. Don't hit.  Stop bugging him.  Leave her alone.  Stop screaming so loud.  Hudson leave the hose on the jet setting when you're shooting at their targets.  Porter stop whining about your pool floatie.  And the list goes onnnnn and onnnn and onnnn.

7pm we finally had to send Eian home because Hudson decided to start emptying the pool out and didn't stop when I asked him to.  In the house, shower and bath time now.   It's going to be an early bedtime.

Now... we had a full day.  I'd love to wake up tomorrow morning and just lay around the house... let the kids play and read a little, organize a few things etc...  But no.  That sounds amazing in theory but do you know how much fighting and whining would be included in that scenario?   I think tomorrow we're headed to the zoo.  Then maybe back to the pool Weds or Thursday and on Friday we're going to an Adventure Park to do an obstacle course in the trees type deal.   I'm exhausted just thinking about the week, but I know if we just sit at home it'll be nothing more than me screaming at kids for non-stop fighting and Porter instigating things left and right (because I'll be honest- this boy is like 5 kids in one.  I could have a whole herd of 10 kids and it'd be less work than Porter among 2 others.  He knows how to get under peoples skin and bug people and push limits like no other).

So screw you, lazy days of summer.  I guess... maybe lazy days means 5 margaritas deep so the kids' fighting is drown out by a tequila stupor but.... maybe I'm wrong.  I guess I'll continue on my jam packed summer filling in the down time with activities to attempt to maintain my sanity.

Bike ride for ice cream

We live about a mile from Dairy Queen, so it's always a fun treat to walk or ride bikes up to get ice cream.  We stopped by the post office as well, so I could mail out a clients images.  Amelia loves going on bike rides!  Her helmet is still super loose in her so hopefully next year her noggin will grow a little!   She also ate her entire baby cone! 

Beatin' the heat this week

It's been a week since I blogged.  Really??? A week!?!  And actually if I'm honest, longer than that because I wrote Amelia's update while we were up north on vacay.

This week has been full of fun.  We hopped right back into our everyday chaos without missing a beat. Okay, maybe a few beats.  Monday I got a babysitter for a couple hours in the morning.  I was in dire need of some kid-free time.  Of course I got all wild and crazy and hit up Menards and Target!  I picked up paint at Menards for the dining room table I bought off the Jackson For Sale Board on FB and two pair of 49 cent sunglasses!  Heh heh!  They were 7.49/ea with a $7 mail in rebate.  Sweet!

Wednesday we had a play date with some friends.  A group of my friends and their friends and friends of friends (ha!) are making a point of getting together once a week throughout the summer.  Its nice to have something to look forward to and to get some adult conversation while the kids entertain each other :)

The past 2 days the boys and I have hung out at my grandma's pool with my sister and her kids.  Shocking... my grandma has a pool and this is the first I've used it since I was a child.  As a kid, my mom used to take my sister and I swimming alllll the time during the summer.  Heather and I have so many memories at my grandma and grandpa's house.  As we grew older I have kind of drifted from my dad's side of the family (maybe partially because of my parents' divorce when I was 14?) but anyhow, I guess it never crossed my mind to use her pool.  Well, that and I didn't want it to be like I was just using her for her pool since I rarely see her throughout the year.  However, Heather stopped by her house Wednesday night when she saw my dad's truck there and she was invited to use the pool.  And then she texted me the next day so we decided to head on over there to swim.  For 4 hours we swam and the boys had a blast!!  It was 103* on Thursday and the pool was a must.  Perfect perfect.  Poor Amelia, though, she was sweating in the shade even.  Today wasn't as hot, but we still swam for a good 3 1/2 hours!  We're going to try to make 2 days a week swim days, as long as weather permits!

By the time we got home the boys were passed out.  What a great day!

Mama + Boys Friday

Today seemed like our typical Friday...

• The boys played while I surfed the net for a bit and woke up
• Decided to go blueberry picking so we got dressed and headed to The Blueberry Patch
• Bummer... they are closed during the week until the blueberries are more abundant
• Stopped into a couple antique/resale shops.  Found a long dresser I really want for the basement.
• Had lunch at Los Tres Amigos... our favorite.  
• At home the boys cleaned while I did some laundry.  
• Took the boys to see the $1 movie at the Michigan Theater.  Rio was playing.  Such a cute movie!
• Hudson crashed on my lap halfway through the movie.  Hilarious to me as Porter would NEVER have done such a thing once he'd passed the baby baby stage.  
• Came home and Ryan packed teh boys up to take them to his dads for the weekend.  Mama needs some alone time!
• I hit the caterpillar jackpot today!  I found 13 eggs and 21 caterpillars in our neighbors milkweed. YAY!  And I had just posted the other day that we'd had bad luck with our monarchs so far this year. 
• I was pretty productive this evening.  Finished my case study.  Picked up the kitchen and dining room (somewhat).  Prepared 10 resumes to send out. Uhmm... I felt like I did a heck of a lot more.  Bummer. 

On a sidenote: Our neighbors are seriously the best. This afternoon Gary came to our front door and asked me to meet him in the backyard.  I was a little nervous... wondered if the dogs or kids had done something to their yard?  Nope.   See, they have better water pressure than we do so we borrow their hose to use the Kid Wash. We just go over and pull their hose through the fence and use their water while the kids play.  Then we take it back.  Well, turns out he got an adapter for his hose spigot so he could have two separate hoses off of it.  He ran one across his yard and along his fence to our yard and gave us a hose and reel box to keep in our yard for the Kid Wash. How sweet is that??  So now we only have to run next door to turn the water on... no more unreeling and reeling back in hoses.

Swim Lessons

As summer started, I noticed Porter had developed a big fear of jumping in the water.  Far cry from his lack of fear in April at the beach when he was JUMPING into the pool fearlessly.  I signed him up for swim lessons and am SO glad I did.  The class was for 2 weeks, 4 days a week.  The first day they had the kids jumping off the diving board!  This was Porter's least favorite part of the class and it kind of put a damper (and a bit of anxiety) on the class for him but everything else he LOVED.  He has no fear of going underwater (and hasn't had that fear ever, really) but his big thing seems to be jumping in the water.  He did great in the shallow end (where it was chest/shoulder deep to him).  I wish I'd signed him up earlier in the summer and he could do 2 sessions in a row but unfortunately we're out of time and unable to sign up for the last session.  Next summer!  (and next summer Hudson will take swim lessons so that will be super nice!)

A little pep in his step as they head back to the pool from the diving board :) 

And then one evening (afternoon?) during our 100+ degree weather we went over to Mary Jo's house to swim with Katie and her boys.  Hudson blew me away by getting comfortable enough to jump in alone and swim to the side.  He was a little fish and jumped in over and over and over.  Hudson is usually my timid kiddo so it surprised me that he learned to swim on his own (albeit with the Safety Seal vest) before Porter did.  

Not to be outdone by his little brother, Porter donned this weird purple aqua jogger belt thingy and he, Donnie and Hudson went to town jumping in.

Look at these buddies... crazy to think they've known eachother since they were newborns!

July Fly By

I absolutely can NOT believe today is the LAST day of July.  WHERE did it go?  WHERE is summer going?   I have not been very good at updating our recent events.  Boo!  I have meant to blog but everytime I get on the computer it seems I get sucked into something else (ahem... Facebook...ahemmmm... pinterest.... ahemmmm....).  I need someone to block those sites for me and maybe I'll be more productive?

So lately... let's see.

My mom and Mike came to visit for a week.  We really didn't see too much of my mom while she was here... we did have a big family cookout on that Saturday (the... uh... 16th?) and that was so nice to see our extended family. Sadly, I took oh about 2 pictures.  EEEP!  Ok, I did take more than that but not much variety.  We took a boat ride on Wednesday when they got into town and then I took a whopping ONE picture on the Saturday we had a cookout.  

• Our lawn mower blew up a few weeks ago.  Or maybe a few months ago... I'm not sure.  Anyhow, we've been push mowing our lawn ALL summer.  Our lawn isn't huge but it still takes a good 2 hours to push mow.  GAH!  Ryan got a surprise bonus from work that was quite a bit more than their normal piddly bonuses so he bought a new riding lawnmower.  It is a beast!  He loves it.  He mowed our lawn today and it so did not even need to be mowed.  I think he told me about 15 times today that he loves his new mower :) 
• The boys had a sleepover at my mom's (err... grandpa's) the Sunday before she went back to NC.  Aubri and Addi stayed the night as well.  The boys were SO excited to go!

• A couple weeks ago I took the boys to ride Lacey.  This has become a summer tradition for us (2009 and 2010) and I wish wish wish I would be more diligent in taking them more often.   After we rode we spent some time in Barbie's pool, Porter got to watch Cole shoot his gun, the boys played on the trampoline, ate ice cream and Barbie and I got to catch up and chat for a bit!

• We have had TERRIBLE luck with our monarchs this summer.  In May and early June we had 3 caterpillars.  1 escaped out of our loose screen and the other 2 formed chrysalids.  1 "hatched' and was deformed or something and died... the other never hatched.  We then found 2 caterpillars at Barbies house the day we went riding.  Hudson squished them a bit but they seemed okay and lived for a few more days and then both died.  We THEN found a little egg, which hatched and then the little caterpillar died the next day.... never began eating.  What the hell!  So right now we have one large caterpillar (that was found as about a 1/2" caterpillar on our neighbors milkweed), 1 teensy tiny just hatched caterpillar and one egg (that is darkening and looks ready to hatch).  I'm HOPING they will all make it to butterflies! 
• The boys went to Vacation Bible School at the church where Porter attends Awanas.  Last year Hudson really wanted to go to Cubbies with Porter but he was too young.  This was Hudson's first class/activity type thing he had done on his own without Ryan or I being there.  I wasn't sure how it'd go but he did great!  I stayed for about 20 minutes to make sure he got settled and then snuck out.  Oddly, Porter seemed to have a harder time with staying on his own than Hudson. When I picked them up they were both so excited and had had so much fun.  Unfortunately we only attended 2 nights of VBS (it was actually 5 days) as I hadn't found out about it until the end of the week.  I feel good about sending Hudson to Cubbies this fall (errr... in a few weeks!).  He will finally be old enough for Awanas and wil be in Cubbies.  Porter will move up and be in Sparks.  Ryan and I will get a 2 hour weekly date night on Sunday!  WOO HOO! 
  
  
  
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• We have really been enjoying our bikes.   We rode quite a bit the first few weeks after I got my bike and Hudson got his little kiddy seat.  Then we had a streak of HOT weather... like "real feel" temp of over 100*.  Ouch.  So we kind of hoarded up inside and didn't take any rides.  Bummer.  However, it has cooled down a bit and we have been riding a bit more.  The boys and I rode up to the gas station last week and got donuts and OJ and then took it to the boat dock to watch (and feed) the ducks.  We have also rode up to DQ (YUMM and so addicting!) as well :)

What else have we been doing this month?  We used our new art easel (which I had purchased about 3 years ago... just never took it out of the box!).  So far it has found a home in the dining room and that might just be where it stays.  

I've been doing TONS of laundry.  Ugh.  I swear to goodness it breeds in our closets and in the basement.  WHERE does all the laundry come from?!?  Hudson helps me out by driving the wet laundry out to the clothes line with the gator.  That gator sure comes in handy!

One of our "rainy day" activities was to build a marble run out of a pool noodle.  Cut it in half and voila!  It kept the boys entertained for a bit and it even turned into a great learning tool.  Porter discovered that heavier marbles go faster down the track.  This boy... he's so observant and is always trying to figure out how things work, and he is always thinking of things to invent.  The other day he found one of those plastic hooks that are on socks when you buy them at the store.  He brought it to me with a length of string and asked me to tie it to the string so he could make a fishing pole. 

Speaking of Porter... this boy cracks me up.  In the winter he'll run outside in a t-shirt with no worries of being cold.  In the summer?  Well, of COURSE he's running around in jeans (literally... ALL SUMMER he has worn jeans!) and long sleeve shirts.  This day in particular?  He found this sweater and thought it was new... so why not wear it on an 85* day? 

We also made rock candy this month.  Holy sugar overload!  To make this amount of rock candy (which was quite a bit more than planned)... took 5 cups of sugar!  Ick!

And just a few randoms......
Porter vacuuming.  He loves this job. 

Hudson and I.  Love this kid.

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relaxin' and maxin'

Today we attempted a 3 mile bike ride but ended up needing to be rescued halfway through.  We first set off down the road and I realized my tires were low.  Real low.  So we turned around and pumped up the tires.  They said 50-70psi so I pumped until the bike pump gauge said 50.    We got down the road about 3/4 mile and the chain on Porter's bike fell off.  Greasy hands and a fixed bike later, we continued on our ride.  About another 3/4 mile down the road I noticed a rubbing noise from my bike.  I thought it was maybe the fender but as I continued down the road it was getting louder and I could tell something was rubbing/hitting my brakes.  After inspection I realized my tire was coming out of (off of?) the rim... there was a lip bulging over the rim.  I figured we'd continue the ride since we were literally halfway around our "block", but 2 driveways later it was getting hard to ride... my brakes were getting stuck on the tire.  I looked agian and it was REALLY bulging over and starting to rub the tire badly.  I went to the house to see if they had a tire gauge thingy but no one was home.  I called Ryan and he told me to press a rock or something in the tire nozzle.  I did that and what do you know, I squeezed my tire back into the rim but I let out TOO much air and my tire was now flat.  There was no way I could ride it.  Ryan had to leave work and come rescue us! 

I decided we'd call it quits for bike riding and then we went into town to run a few errands (Rapid Refill and Pet Supplies Plus).  We also went to the library to redeem their Summer Reading Logs (we're doing the Summer Reading Program) and they got prizes and new reading logs.  We also picked out a TON of books.  Funny, I made them library bags, intending to tell them "you can get out as many books as you are able to carry in your bag"... meaning 2 or 3. But I can't stop myself and I end up picking out so many kids books that I have to use their bags to carry them and I end up carrying both bags plus a few extra books!  Looks like Mama needs her own library bag!  

When we got home I whipped up this book tent.  Rope from b-ball hoop to tree, 4 clothespins, 2 sheets, a quilt and some pillows?  Voila!  There was a nice breeze and we laid here and read books for awhile and then fell asleep for a couple hours.  Naptime outside- sweet!  (don't get too jealous... the "getting to sleep" part wasn't so easy.  I had to threaten and growl a few times but finally they fell asleep and I was finally able to get my much-needed rest! haha!)

The light was gorgeous and filtered underneath the tent... maybe I need to try this for a session HAHA!  We had some fun with the camera and I got a few shots I looove!  Perfect for Embrace the Camera!

so, are you ready to embrace the camera?

here's the nitty gritty:

1.  take a picture with you and your kids/spouse/family member/friend/whatever.

2.  blog about that picture and include a link to our blog, or grab our button.

3.  link your blog post up on the link tool below.

4.  visit the other embracers...give each other lots of compliments about how good we look with our greasy hair andsweatpants velour jogging suits on.  cause yah, we need a little boost when it's been days since our last shower.

5.  have fun!

I love these boys.  This summer... this summer has been amazing so far.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my days with them and, even though there are nights I say to Ryan "I'm done... I can't deal anymore today", I think I'm doing a pretty damn good job keeping my wits about me.  Ryan is gone 2 nights a week so in addition to me being home fulltime, there are 2 days a week we don't see him at all.  The boys and I have done so many fun projects and activities this summer I'm really dreading going back to work.  I wish so much I was able to stay home with these monkeys.