Attempting to be a Super Mom

Good Morning and Happy Friday! I sure hope the new year finds everyone well. Every year I look back on the year before. This year, I don't really want to do all that.  While it wasn't a completely awful year, it wasn't a great one either. We've lost loved ones. I went to two funerals this year for my only surviving Grandparents. Rylie went to kindergarten and Scottie started preschool. That's about the only things that really happened at all.... Here is my top 9 from this year on my instagram. It's pretty good at catching some highlights of the year. And the kids Christmas picture I also always say that I hope to get back to my blog. I'm not going to say that, even though I intend to. I just feel that actions speak louder than words. I'm back to videos, back to my blogs, trying to catch up my book and recipe updates. I'm also still reading. We blew past both of our goals last year. 60 recipes completed in our 52 in 2017 and 33 or so ...

This week is the kids' Spring Break. It stinks a little. Last year and the year before we tagged along to Shawn's business trips, but this year he didn't have a business trip so, we're at home.  Everyone around us had spring break last week, but our city lined up our spring break with the college so we can't even spend our days doing stuff with cousins or anything. The kids soccer started this week, which through a wrench in my day trip plans I was visualizing. It's hard to go somewhere a little ways away when you have to be back for practice by 5:30. I bought some little seed pots from the dollar section at target and plan to do some fun stuff with the kids this spring break. I also made sure to buy the kids some green shirts for the St. Patrick's Day Parade in town, since the kids first day out of school was St. Patrick's Day. Friday, Shawn was out of town, so the kids and I went to the parade with out him. We met with some friends there....

I have been in a little bit of a funk lately, but only when it comes to house work.  Now, we aren't living in absolute filth, I just have a couple baskets of laundry that desperately need to be folded and I did dishes right before dinner last night but haven't done them since.  I suppose I should, but I'd rather blog about how lazy I feel.  I know we all have those days, but this has been going on for about three days now.  I need to snap out of it, because I feel like the mess is stressing me out more. Does this happen to anyone else? I guess I'd just rather lay around and watch tv and snuggle with my kids. I need a maid for weeks like this.  Haha!

Sandra, over at  Diary of a Stay at Home Mom  had blogged about going back to the beginning of her blog, and getting back to what she loved so much about herself and the blog.  It sounded like a good idea, and that's what I intend to do as well.  I want to blog about what's important to me, and what my family is up to. I also want to get back into projects with my kids.  I'm planning on bringing back Watercolor Wednesdays and Finger paint Fridays.  I would like to work on the alphabet with both Ben and Sydney.  We'll probably do a lot of the projects we've already done, but they are new to Sydney and will make sense in a different way to Ben than they did before.  I'm hoping to spend more time either at the park or at the pool.  I'd love to get the kids going to play dates as well as "field trips" like the zoo, the river, the capital, etc. I'm going to make my husband sit down with me and help put together a page I can be proud of.  ...

Today is not going the way I planned it to.  I woke up not feeling too hot.  My stomach muscles ache so badly.  They were a little sore yesterday and today they are terrible and only getting worse.  I still have a rather large, light green bruise on my stomach, that is a reminder I'm not fully healed yet and probably should slow down a little. Shawn left for Memphis today.  He'll be back tomorrow but as I'm sure my mother could testify, I don't do to well with people leaving me.  I cried every time my Dad left on a business trip and now I'm the same with my husband.  I don't know how you military families do it.  Shawn's only gone for one or two nights at a time and it's difficult.  I can't imagine him being gone for weeks or months or even longer.  I guess, just like we do for the one or two nights at a time, you do what you have to get by. I was hoping to do fun stuff today like going to the park, crafts, movies, junk food, the whol...

Last night, we got Sydney to sleep around her actual bed time, but Ben wanted to stay up and party.  Finally he crashed at about 10:30.  If only I could have gone to bed at this time.  Too bad that wasn't the case.  Shawn and I had a lot left to do.  He had spent the evening ironing his clothes and we still had so many to fold and put away.  I finally got to bed a little after 12:30.  To a lot of people, this may not be a big deal, but I'm not a night person.  I'd rather be up nice and early, than be up late at night. Luckily, my kids decided to sleep all night in their own beds.  They didn't get up, not once until 8:15 this morning.  This is not common here.  Ben is usually up coughing or wanting someone to come snuggle him.  Lately he's even been sneaking into our bed, only for us to wake up about 15 minutes later, being kicked or knocked out of bed.  Sydney usually climbs out of her crib and joins us in bed, anytime f...

The past couple of weeks have been a whirl wind!  We've been working on the house and looking for a new place to live.  We've been battling illnesses of both the stomach and head variety, and my brother stayed with us for a weekend. The house hunt The reason we were looking to move was due to the fact that the slab our house is on has a huge crack down the middle.  This causes major cracks in the walls when the house moves or settles.  It also allows for the massive spider problems we had last spring, summer, and fall.  The latest problem is that the man who lived here before us, didn't do a very good job of cleaning the gutters causing rot and drainage issues and with all the snow we had gotten, it was causing the overhang to almost fall completely off the house. We've looked at 3 different places.  Maybe I'm too picky, but I don't think any of them fit our family. The first was an apartment type place in an old, renovated grocery store from the ...

My friend Meagan posted on her blog showing her "messy" kitchen.  She wants to see everybody else's messy kitchen.  Well, here goes nothing. My kitchen isn't too bad.  I just need to put away the clean dishes.  The real problem is my dining room! My skin is crawling knowing that people will be seeing this.  I've got a lot to do today so we can decorate our Christmas tree tonight.   This makes me curious too.  I want to see your kitchen, and if you have a different "messy" area in your house that you'd be rushing to clean if you had company on their way over, show me that too.  Put the link in the comments section of this post.

Last night, Shawn and I were sitting on the couch after dinner thinking about our day.  We were talking and trying to figure out why we are so much more active now than we ever were in our old house.  We play out in the yard here.  We had a yard at the last house.  Not a big yard, but a yard, and we never went out to play in it.  We used the deck but that was it.  We've been walking, decent, lengthy walks.  We've also lived in Lawrence 5 years and just this last weekend went to the Lawrence Farmer's Market for the first time.  Why haven't we gone until now?  The best I can think is that with Sydney's birth, my being unemployed, and now the new house, we're kind of getting a fresh start as a family. Last night, we were going to walk to the park, but Ben decided he wanted to play in the backyard too.  We played catch with Ben, fetch with the dog, and Ben and Shawn wrestled around for awhile. Finally we went on a wa...