Sorry I'm late

I have to tell you that I'm very sorry I'm pretty much always late now. I use to be a very punctual person. It was even a pet peeve of mine when people weren't on time. The women's fraternity i was a member of in college even had it as one of the "rules". But, now... Now I have kids, dogs, and a husband.


So next time we're to meet up and I'm late, here's a few reasons why:

1.My son started crying at 4:30 this morning and threw all of our lives into a tizzy... sorry I know it's now 6pm tonight.
2. I told my daughter she couldn't have candy for breakfast so she had a meltdown, which led to a pee accident which led to a wet wipe bath...
3. It's too dark out
4. My son thought his juice would look better on his head
4. My daughter's foot is dying
6. THE flower dress is dirty, enter meltdown
7. The dog got out of the house (via knocking over the kids and bolting out the door)
8. I can't find my keys (left them in the door LAST night)
9. We need to find sunglasses
10. Despite telling everyone 31 times that we are late we REALLY needed to stop and read a book.
11. We needed boo boo ice for the dying foot.
12. Despite "I'll be better tomorrow Momma" they weren't
13. We needed a princess bandaid for our bug bites
14. We had the wrong color headband on... clearly matching is wrong
15. We needed a snack, and juice, and now we aren't hungry for the lunch we were going to have with you.
16. The dog decided to throw up a sock at that moment
17. My Son "found" the throw up sock
18. My son decided to "hide"... on top of the throw up
19. My daughter needed to change my son's diaper
20. My son bit my daughter because she was trying to change his diaper
21. The sky is blue
22. My son put his only clean coat in the toilet, so now he's wearing his sister's pink one
23. Because Sally's Mommy lets Sally.... clearly I'm a terrible Mom
24. Because "I'm just going to be sad now"
25. because i locked myself in the bathroom to scream

A time in life

There come times in your life where you just want to give up. Whether its give up trying to lose weight, or be the perfect Mom, or run a half marathon. Or you just want to curl into a little ball and sleep for days because you can't figure out what the point of it all is. 

Don't get me wrong, I know what the point of it is!

She's the point. This feisty little, soon to be four year old is the point. Her questions and amazement are the point.

This wildly sweet 20 month old is the point. With his mumbled words and fearless nature, he's the point.

 But half the time I get so caught up in life I often miss THOSE points. Luckily I have this woman (Chris's Mom) near by that gives me enough of a breather that I get moments of clarity like these so I can remember the point.

My most recent source of frustration is our house. We were getting married, had been in Maryland for 8 months. Working new jobs. Tired of throwing money away on an apartment and so we bought. We bought a simple LITTLE townhouse as our starter home in 2006. What we bought that tiny little, fixer upper townhouse for then, could buy us a pretty cute single family now. If we weren't upside down on that little starter home, we could afford a pretty nice house with property now, especially since the market is now in our favor! But we're stuck.

This is what I want to do to the housing market! (Dang isn't she cute!)

 

 (This is my sweet little girls first Karate test, Holy crap when did my kid get big enough to take karate and speak Korean? Obviously she's effected by the housing market!)

But you know what? She is. She can't invite all of her friends to her birthday party because we don't have the room. She's inviting quite a large number, considering the size of our humble abode, but I didn't have the heart to tell her no to everyone. We'll make it work, albeit close!

 So by now you're thinking "At least you have a home Erin" and I agree. We are lucky. We have a home. Each child has their own bedroom (although Parker's is a glorified closet). We have no problem making our bills. We are very lucky. We are blessed. But it isn't our dream. We keep working harder and harder to reach our dreams but we keep hitting road blocks along the way and I keep wondering, when is SOMETHING going to give??

You like what I did there don't you? Kinsley made it give!  She broke through. HA I sleigh me!

I know God has a plan for our family. I know he has a direction for us to go in and just because we're stuck in a house that's too small and too old and still needs too much fixing that we don't have the time or money to put into it... there's a reason we're still here. Maybe to make us appreciate what we do have. Maybe to test us (because Lord knows that house is starting to test me with two crazy kids, two annoying dogs, and my love for entertaining). Maybe it's because something better is coming at just the right moment and if it happened now it would be too soon.

We bought this townhouse too soon... one more year and we would have paid at least $30,000-40,000 less than we did and we would have been able to move by now. So now I need to be patient and know there's a time and it's not always going to be MY time. But if you know me, patience is not one of my attributes. So pray for us. Not that we get a house, or win the lottery (although that would be okay with me) pray that we find contentment and happiness. Pray that we stop looking at what we don't have or could have and start looking at what we do have. Pray that it stops feeling like a beating (not just about this house but life in general) and starts feeling like what it is... a blessing.

 

We're the one in the middle... this is circa 2009, improvements have been done since then~

Primal update

So today is the start of my second week doing the Primal Blueprint. And I cheated this weekend. I didn't cheat A LOT but I did cheat. Friday I had a small glass of red wine. Saturday I had wine and dessert. Sunday I had union straws(the kind that's fried) in my salad (didn't realize it until it was too late) and then i had a few mini brownies.
But honestly... that's ALL the cheating I did! All my other meals were clean! Even eating out (McDonald's and Cracker Barrel) I ate clean! OH AND Dunkin Donuts... now I'm sure there it wasn't 100% clean but i had them give me the turkey sausage and egg on the side and I gave Kinsley the bagel! WIN!

I Felt GOOD about my choices too!
Here's the thing that's really blowing me away, I'm NOT hungry! SURE i could eat a huge burger and fries because I mentally want it, but I'm rarely hungry! Saturday I had coffee, turkey sausage, an egg, some raw veggies, a salad with grilled chicken, and then broccoli for dinner and i was STUFFED! I was going to have steak and broccoli for dinner but the steak was gross and then I realized i wasn't that hungry so broccoli it was. Honestly, could have gone without the salad too.
I'm not trying to starve myself, I'm trying to listen to my hunger cues and without the crash and burn of carbs, there isn't much of a cue!
So I made my Fritata again and I'm ready to go for another week of eating clean!

Man My Timing ROCKS!

Man my timing ROCKS! Like seriously Rocks. I've decided that I need to really step it up with the efforts to lose the weight I hate and I really have bought into this whole, primal, clean eating way of it... so I'm doing my own version of the 21 Day Primal Blueprint/ Whole 30.

I've seen many people, people that I ACTUALLY KNOW (not just some face on a website) have a lot of success with eating clean. Not just have they been able to lose weight (come on the reason we really are going to do this) but they sleep better, have more energy, had health issues solved, etc. AND they have amazing poop babies, come on you all know that's a BIG plus!

Still reading after that doozy?

So I'm going to walk you through the ins and outs of my detox from refined sugars and carbs! I have a MAJOR addiction to it all so this should get good! And like with any good diet/life style change I have impeccable timing!  But really, is there ever a good time? Just because Halloween is this week and we have friends coming over for a BBQ on Saturday... that means NOTHING! (OMG I already miss all the candy and beer I'm not going to get to have!) But I will be able to enjoy Thanksgiving because it'll be done by then! Sliding in for a win, VICTORY!

Here's my thought process on this day 1. Prepping and being "ready" for this is HARD. I'm so used to convenience and being able to just grab something, or drive through and get something, but on the detox portion of this I can't even have steel cut oats! So you really have to prepare yourself. I already have enough on my plate so lets add this in. I'm not looking forward to salads EVERY DAY, so I'm going to try to cook bigger dinners so i can reheat. I'm not pumped AT ALL to workout, like AT ALL. But I'm going to try to get something in! Maybe. Oh God now I'm already giving up.

Yesterday I made a Frittata that I then separated into slices so I could bring them to work this week easily for breakfast! And it's not a cold breakfast and it's pretty filling! Lunch is a salad, I have an apple and banana for snacks, dinner... no clue.

So right now I'm okay. But it's also first thing in the morning on day one. gulp.

Parker Thomas

Parker is my wild man, a non-stop eater, a fixer, a drummer, and a lover.

Parker is now 20months old and he throws us for a loop every single day! He is nothing like Kinsley, we were so unprepared for him! Where she was quite, he screams. Where she would sit and play, he climbs. Where she would watch Mickey Mouse, he drums on the walls.

Did i mention he eats? A lot. Like might put some teenage boys to shame! Last night alone he ate 2 packages of muffins, a large banana, and his dinner, that's pretty normal for him! 

 He is also perpetual motion. The only time I see him sit and "rest" is when he's pretend reading a book, and OH does he do it with FEELING! Really I should record it. While we've been worried about him here and there with his speech, I've never worried about his intelligence. He's SHARP! He wants to know HOW everything works and he's an extremely good and determined problem solver. Even 15months he was figuring out how to get a stool, move it, and climb up to grab the doctor's computer. Even though it took him a few tries to get the placement, he did it! The doctor just laughed in amazement.

Parker was plagued with ear problems from a VERY early age and had about an ear ache a month until he got tubes at 16 months. Because of these ear issues, and because he's the baby and we let him get away with grunts, at his 18 month appointment he was behind on his speech. We made appointments and met with specialist. By the time he tested at the age of 19 months we what we found out was astonishing, but very Parker. In all of  his developmental areas (besides speech) he is functioning at a 25-26 month old. They were floored too by his attention span and were able to do far more with him than a typical 19 month old. But his speech? Not behind for his age, just his development level! They said he was just barely at the 19 month old level for speech but they would like to see it on the same level of his other areas. And they were impressed that he was so incredible at getting what he wanted because he found other ways to communicate his wants to us! I mean I knew he was smart! ;)

 One of Parker's favorite pass times is dumming. Anything ON anything. To the point where I'm terrified that he's going join a band, get discovered, go on tour, and then do a stent in rehab before he even gets out of diapers! His favorite "stick"? A plastic golf club... yet Thanks Aunt Jessie and Uncles Dan! ;)

Did I mention he likes to eat?

 Parker is a silly, fun little boy. Where Kinsley was blatantly obstinate, Parker is just curious. He is constantly making us all laugh! He's been a grunter since the day he was born and we love to hear him confirm what you're saying with his little Tim the Tool Man grunt!

Kinsley Grace

I've realized that it's been awhile since i've updated you on the ins and outs of my kiddos so I thought I would take a moment to bring you up to speed, one child at a time!

Kinsley Grace, she is now a little over a month shy of her 4th birthday! Where did the time go? She will start Kindergarten in two years. Part of me is sad for her since many of her friends will start next year, but alas she has a December birthday. Secretly I'm happy because I want to keep her little for just a smig longer!

Kinsley is a very complex little girl. She's extremely intelligent; she knows all her letters and numbers and can write almost all of the perfectly. She remembers everything and anything; not one of those children that you tell "later" to, because she will remember later. Kinsley speaks beautifully and still uses her power of persuasion and reason to get her way. She still says a few things that are cute:

McDonalds: Old McDonald

Earrings: Engring

the past is always Yesterday, the future is always Tomorrow

But my list of cute toddler phrases is getting shorter and shorter. 

She is still in dance and loves every minute of it!

 

She loves her brother like a little Mommy. She knows what's best for him! But, now that he's very independent himself she is a full scale tattler. According to her, I must be made aware of everything at all times, good or bad. 

Kinsley still has epic meltdowns, but normally they can be stopped with the possiblity of losing all of her marbles (which she earns and loses for behavior). Her favorite put-down is "X can't come to my birthday party"... it doesn't matter if her party is 8 months away, it has been used. 

 She has noise issues, any loud noise bothers her and upsets her. But she will push through if she thinks the reward is worth it!
Kinsley also LOVES church. She has only been to Sunday School and nursery but she LOVES it! She in fact insists on praying over all of our meals and will even thank God when she's gotten on purple at school (for good behavior).

 I often forget how young Kinsley really is because she has such a maturity about her. I can bring her to my work and no one will ever know because she's so good and quite. I can talk to her and she listens. She also takes in everything, as I learned the hard way when Chris and I were fighting one day.
She loves new friends, being outside, and swimming. Her favorite shows are Doc McStuffins, Sofia, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Mickey Mouse Club House (although that is slowly fading). She loves all the princesses, but Ariel is her favorite. She love long hair, not short like Daddy's. Her favorite color is Orange (no lie, only my girl) and her favorite food is spaghetti.

Kinsley is my first baby and definitely had us fooled about how good and easy kids are!

Furloughing right along

Well on September 29th we went to a pumpkin patch and there ended our "fun". Notice there's no Parker in this picture? It's because he was feeling sick and cranky. Then the bottom fell out... furloughed. Yup pretties, I'm a government employee so that means I have to stay home. We aren't allowed to get other jobs to get us thought because "we have a job". This past weekend the kids spent the night at Grandma's but K woke up on Sunday not feeling her best... now it's Thursday and she's still sick! YUCK. We went to the doctor on Monday where she was tested for strep and was sent home with a virus determination, but if the fever is still around on Thursday to bring her in... well it's Thursday...

But I know all of y'all are like "um we don't care about sick kids, we have those, what ARE you DOING on your forced vaca?
Well I painted a buffet in my dinning room blue

I might be in love!~ It was just this redish-brown before so it's AMAZING now!
I have also:
Cleaned my house
Done laundry non-stop
Stained the deck (OMG NEVER AGAIN!)
Switched the TV from Verizon to dish to save $40 a month!
cleaned the carpet
ran 23,409,220,394 errands
made homemade dinners again
taken care of a sick girl
organized trouble areas
Sanded the Cabinets
Decorated for Fall/Halloween

Still to do?
Paint a wall chevron (just added this today!!)
Find a new bank
clean out the filing cabinet
change the kids rooms? (was going to wait until later closer to December, but if this furlough keeps on through next week I think it might get bumped up!)
Clean out the fridge
Clean all the bathrooms
re-paint the cabinets
clean the walls
change out/add photos

And the list keeps growing. I'm keeping busy since I can't even check my work email without losing my jobs. And it is nice to get a chance to do all this, especially since September (being the end of our Fiscal Year) was so crazy... but the unknown is still very stressful!

Happy Furlough!