Category: Life

2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 1 husband – life isn’t perfect, but it is what we make it

Chaos Is Not So Much A Routine

Published by dee on June 22, 2010

You never think that coming home from vacation will be harder than preparing to leave for vacation, but it always is. Those little things that you do day in and day out throughout the week really add up. And when you are gone for over a week, there is a lot to do when you get back. All of that is the long way to tell you all that the last week was insanely crazy for me.

Besides all of the catch up, I decided that immediately after we returned from vacation would be a great time to throw a wrench into our established routine. Since preschool was over for Zach at the end of May, we’re changing gears a bit over the summer. He’s spending three days a week at the sitter with Evie, and the other two days he’s spending at my sister’s house. Being the awesome preschool teacher that she is, she’s working with him a bit over the summer on his letters and numbers. In order for him to do that, he has to spend the night up there two nights a week (due to the 30-minute drive each way). Zach is loving every minute of it, especially since he gets to hang out with his cousins two days a week.

This is all working out splendidly, especially on those mornings when Zach is at my sister’s house. Mornings go much easier when I only have to get myself and Evie up. I even got to work 15 minutes early one day, which is pretty much unheard of for me. If it weren’t for the fact that I had to arrange to pick him up two evenings a week, the whole deal would just be spectacular. I hate for my evening routine to be messed up but I chose to do this, so I can’t really complain. It just makes the week feel so much busier.

After a crazy week of the new routine, trying to catch up at work, trying to catch up at home, and in the meantime keep my sanity, I was wiped out by the weekend. I had all these plans of things I wanted to get done and I got very little of it done. Instead, I had one of the best weekends with my family that I’ve had in a long time. We did get a bit of work done on the house but we also went to see Toy Story 3, took a long afternoon nap during a thunderstorm, had my brother-in-law over for dinner and a movie, played on the slip ‘n’ slide, and went swimming at my mom’s. I ended the weekend exhausted, sunburned, and very happy.

It makes me wish I could just blow off the housework and other odds and ends all the time and just have fun. Oh, how I wish that were an option. I wish I could just shove it all aside and take a true vacation for the summer like Cass intends to do. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

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Mountains, Dinosaurs, Buffalo, and Antelope

Published by dee on June 9, 2010

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If you’re not keeping up on facebook or twitter, the family and I embarked on our annual summer road trip last Friday. This year we headed up to Utah to visit Hubby’s family. Much of the trip here was rather boring (Nebraska) but then we drove through Wyoming – where we saw real cowboys! Finally, as we neared Utah we started seeing mountains and Evie was super impressed.

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After nearly 18 hours of driving (including pit stops) and a quick overnight stay at the Comfort Inn in Laramie, WY, we finally made it to our destination. We were all quite happy to get out of the car at last. The kids were thrilled to see their cousins, Uncle, Granny, and Papa.

We stuck around the house the first day, then headed into Salt Lake City where we walked around downtown, enjoyed lunch at a local microbrewery, went to a cool dinosaur museum, and then I got to go to IKEA for the very first time. I’m not sure what part of that trip was the most exciting. I am thinking of moving closer to an IKEA though.

Yesterday we went to Antelope Island where we saw the Great Salt Lake, some buffalo, an antelope or two, and toured an old ranch. After we got back, the kids enjoyed playing out in the yard some more. Zach and Evie have really been enjoying playing in the little pool and sprinkler.

Today we drove out to Bear Lake, which was absolutely beautiful. We had a picnic lunch, let the kids play, and had a great time. On the way back, we were so high in the mountains that we encountered snow. It was strange to be dressed in shorts and t-shirts and be standing next to a pile of snow.

I still have lots of photos to go through, but we really are having a great time. Tomorrow is our last full day in Utah before heading back home and I’m a little sad about that. I wish we could stay longer.

It is going to be awfully hard to leave, but at least we’ll have the photos to remember it by.

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Firsts

Published by dee on May 16, 2010

Evie went on her very first sleepover last week. She has stayed overnight with Grandma a couple of times, but Zach has always been with her. This time she went all by herself. Granted, she was spending the night at my brother’s house, but it was still a pretty big deal. It was her first overnight with a girlfriend. From the sounds of things, she got spoiled rotten and had a really great time with her cousin Caitlin. I was even a little jealous because she got to go to the zoo while I was stuck at work.

Thursday night was my nephew Ryan’s preschool graduation. I got handed the task of taking photos of the kids as they walked across the stage (which I didn’t mind at all). For some reason I decided to take the plunge and shot the entire thing in manual mode. I’ve played around with manual before, but never felt confident enough to use it when I was shooting anything important. I finally felt like I was ready, shot a bunch of test shots before hand, and just did it. I did end up with some bad shots, but I also ended up with some really good shots, so it was a win in my books. My biggest problem was trying to focus and keep focused when the kids were moving so fast across the stage.

The best part of the graduation though, was watching my sister. Since she’s my sister, I don’t always think of her as being someone’s teacher, but she is without a doubt the best preschool teacher I’ve ever seen. Her love for the kids she teaches shines through in everything she does. She had a bit of a hard time getting through the ceremony (especially when it was Ryan’s turn to walk across the stage) but I think that just shows how much she cares about those kids. This is what she was meant to do and it shows.

On Saturday, my mom and I got up bright and early to walk in the Hillcrest Walk for the Homeless. It was my first 5K of the year and I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t thrilled to wake up to rain, but I didn’t let it dampen my spirits! The walk went great, aside from the big blister on my toe. I personally ended up with $215 of pledges and was thrilled with that considering I had less than a week to ask for donations. I want to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who gave. I know money is tight for a lot of people right now, and that just makes me even more appreciative. I was just recently introduced to the Hillcrest program and it is something I definitely want to support in the future.

And now here are some random pics I took of my kids while doing my test shots on graduation night.

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Faith In Action Weekend

Published by dee on May 9, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about the experience we had last weekend, but with the crazy busy week we had I never really got a chance to. So, here it is…a week later.

Instead of heading to church for our normal services last Sunday, we headed out to put our “Faith In Action” along with nearly 70 other members of our new church. We met up at Platte Woods church, where they already had many people working hard to pack meal packets that would be shipped to Haiti to help those who are in dire need of a healthy meal.

Not only did the adults get in on the action, but we had kids as young as two years old by our sides as we worked. (Evie did go to child care, but Zach helped out as long as I could hold his interest). We scooped rice, beans, and protein powder into plastic bags, weighed, and sealed the packs. Then they were packed into boxes and prepared for shipment.

Our combined efforts packed 300,000 meal packets, containing six servings each for the people of Haiti. In the process, my son got to learn a nice lesson about the world and what it feels like to help people who may be a little less fortunate than ourselves.

After we were finished, we took the kids to the park for doing such a great job. I was so proud of them for helping and being a part of this great experience.

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I'm Only Blue When The Sox Aren't In Town

Published by dee on April 22, 2010

After all the posting I did last week, I’m not feeling too wordy but I am feeling the pressure to get something new up here. I was playing around with making collages a few days ago to enter in the iheartfaces challenge this week, but never was satisfied enough with any of them to actually use them. However, you all get to see one of my masterpieces now.

These are some of the pics I took at the Red Sox/Royals game we went to a couple weeks ago. After checking out the ticket prices, we opted to leave Evie with my sister (way beyond the freebie height cut-off now) and just take Zach to the game. I think he enjoyed the Mommy/Daddy time without his annoying little sister around to steal the show. Well, that and the peanuts, snow cone, and nachos! Now, if I could just get convince him to cheer for the right team…

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A Girl and Her Cat

Published by dee on April 16, 2010

During my last year of college I worked at a group home for developmentally disabled adults. While there were no pets allowed in the house, there were two cats that sort of adopted the porch. Eventually these two cats had a litter of kittens. They were the most beautiful kittens I had ever seen and the first I had ever seen only hours after they were born. There were only three in the litter and I had plans to keep two of them – one for me and one for my mom. A co-worker was going to keep the third one.

The momma cat eventually started weaning the kittens and we decided it was about time for them to be taken to their respective homes. I was heading home that weekend, so I had planned to take my two little furballs with me. Unfortunately, either the momma cat or the baby kittens had other plans. They disappeared the day before I was supposed to take them home. We have no idea where they went. They were just gone and I was devastated.

Not long after that, a co-worker and I were taking a group on an outing. We had the van loaded up and just as we started pulling out of the driveway, we saw this little puff of white moving around in the grass. We got out of the van to check it out and there stood the cutest little Siamese kitten. I’ve always had a thing for Siamese cats and this little guy was just too cute. He came right up to me and snuggled up in my arms. My co-worker convinced me that it was a sign and that I should take him home.

That night he was officially named Pedro (anyone want to guess where that came from?) and he’s been with me ever since. He was my “baby” before I ever had any human babies of my own and he has certainly seen me through some rough times in my life. He always just seems to know when I’m feeling down and I’ve cried into his fur more times than I can count.

I guess that’s why it is so touching to me to see Evie really connecting to our animals, and especially to Pedro. She absolutely loves Pedro. If she spots him you can bet that she’s petting or hugging him. She walks around asking “Where Pedro at?” She loves him, just as I have for all these years.

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