Tag: Family

iheartfaces – We Are Family

Published by dee on January 19, 2010

A week sure does go by fast, eh? That means it’s time for another iheartfaces photo challenge. This week’s theme is “We Are Family” which means you get to see my face for a change!

As usual, I wasn’t prepared for this challenge, so I scrambled around last night trying to get my husband and kids to cooperate while I played with my new wireless remote trigger. They were much more interested in playing Mario Bros. on the Wii than they were in a photo shoot, so I snapped a few and figured I’d take what I could get. It certainly won’t win any rewards, but I can say I participated and well, it’s pretty typical of my family!

Head over to iheartfaces and check out some of the other (much more amazing) We Are Family Photos!

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Life

Published by dee on January 7, 2010

It has been over a month now since I’ve written a real post here – one with actual words and thoughts and stuff. I’ve kept up with Facebook, but I’ve gone days at a time without posting on Twitter(!) and my other blogs are crying because they think I’ve forgotten them. The good news is that I’ve been living life in the real world and enjoying nearly every minute of it.

Over the holidays, we had a house full. Hubby’s mom and dad came up from Alabama and his brother and his family drove all the way here from Utah to spend Christmas with us. We don’t get to see them often, so it was really nice to get to spend some time together. I was bummed to have to work most of the time they were here, but when you do bookkeeping for companies that run on a calendar year, year-end is not the time to take vacation. We ate lots of yummy food, saw Avatar, braved a snow/ice storm on Christmas Eve, enjoyed a chaotic Christmas morning, watched the Chiefs get beat by the Broncos, made an “adults only” trip to Lawrence to meet up with friends, had an early birthday celebration for my niece, and had a blast watching our four kids all play together. It was a lovely two weeks and we were so sad to see everyone head back home.

While our company was still here, Zach and Evie both managed to come down with a nasty stomach bug. Zach was down for an entire week with it and Evie for about 4 days. Just when we thought Zach was getting well again, he started up an awful sounding cough. After three days of that, I took him to the doctor and found out he had a sinus infection. Hopefully the antibiotics will get things cleared up and he will start feeling well again.

Also over the last month or so, I’ve put my web design cap back on. I somehow agreed to create a new web site for the church we’ve been attending. I’m doing it the easy way, using WordPress as a CMS with a pre-made theme, but I’m having fun customizing it. I still have quite a bit to do, but I do like the direction it is going. I’m just really nervous about showing it to the team. It has been a while since I’ve done anything other than my own personal sites. I did get good feedback from a screenshot of the main page, but no one has seen it live yet.

Throughout all the craziness, I’ve been spending every free moment I have trying to learn how to use my new camera. I was able to buy a few accessories for it, including a 50mm lens, with some Christmas money I received. Plus, my boss loaned me several of his lenses to play around with. Straight out of the box, I could tell a difference in photo quality but I can’t wait to see how much better my photos get after I learn more about what I’m doing. Starting at the end of January, I’m going to be taking a short basic photography course with a friend. Hopefully that will give me the little push I need to start shooting in manual mode more often.

That pretty much wraps up the last month, unless you want to hear about all the snow we’ve been getting and the frigid temperatures. Seriously, I can’t remember ever getting this much snow at this time of year (those pics are from before the last 2 snows!). It really makes me wish I had a garage that I didn’t have to drive down a slippery slope to get to! My poor car is hating me for parking it outside.

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Summer Ends Too Fast

Published by dee on September 10, 2009

The temperatures have cooled down, schools are starting up, and just as we’re finally starting to really enjoy it, summer has to end. Over Labor Day weekend we took one last trip to my dad’s lake house. We had an amazing time riding around on the pontoon boat, fishing with the kids, sharing meals, and just spending time together (me winning the game of Scrabble was just a little bonus!). There’s really not much more to say, so I’ll share some of my favorite photos from the weekend instead.

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Good

Published by dee on August 17, 2009

My boss and I pulled into the parking lot at the same time this morning. As we got out of our cars, he asked me how my weekend was.

“Good,” I replied.

And it was good, just not great. I was moody. Hubby was moody. The kids were a little crazy, which didn’t help out the moodiness of the adults. One thing just added onto another and by Sunday morning Hubby and I were having it out. It was inevitable I suppose. I felt it coming on all week.

All week long I felt the pressure building. Our weekly schedule is a little out of whack with Zach in swimming lessons. I was extra stressed at work trying to get my computer back up and running after replacing the hard drive. Hubby seemed a little more cranky than usual (though I suppose it could have just been me). Zach was more difficult than usual. Evie’s shrieks seemed to grate on my nerves more than usual. Money was tight as we waited for pay day to come on Friday. And I threw a new diet and exercise (ha!) routine in on top of all that.

Friday night Hubby started on-call for work and got called out just as I was getting home with the kids. We agreed to meet up for dinner after he finished his job, but by the time we all got there it was nearly 7:00. The kids were totally out of hand (because they were hungry!) and my stress level was crazy high trying to deal with them. Once we finally got food they settled down. I had promised the kids we’d go swimming at Grandma’s since I needed to pick up some tables from her house so we headed over there next. We ended up leaving Zach to spend the night at Grandma’s with his cousins and headed home where I still needed to prepare for the garage sale I planned on having Saturday.

I ended up staying up until around 2:30 trying to get stuff ready for the garage sale. I didn’t sleep well at all, and then got up at 7:00 to shower and get ready for the sale. Apparently Saturday was just not the day for garage sales in my neighborhood. It was slow as heck and while I did get rid of quite a few things, I had a lot more I wanted to get rid of. I also lowered a lot of prices just to sell stuff and ended up only making $61. When it started raining at 3:00, I was actually glad that I had an excuse to fold up early. We piled everything in the house and I sat down in my comfy chair where I promptly fell asleep and dozed off and on for the next 2 hours or so. I finally forced myself up, but only because my kids needed dinner. I don’t even really remember the rest of the evening, except for the fact that I went to bed early.

I was hoping to set up the sale again for a few hours on Sunday, but when I woke up to thunder and the sound of rain hitting the roof, I knew that was out of the question. Instead, I intended to spend the day cleaning. The kids and I started the morning out slow, with cartoons and pop tarts in the living room. I had warned Zach that as soon as his show ended we would go start cleaning up the play room. With about 5 minutes left of his show, Hubby started telling Zach he needed to go start cleaning. Zach and I both bot irritated by that since I had already told him he could finish his show, and things just escalated from there.

Hubby and I spent the rest of the morning irritated with each other, mainly because we had different agendas for the day. We both pretty much had the same goals (except mine involved a little more work) just a different way of getting to them. Instead of communicating, we were just griping. But, eventually we got (almost) everything done anyway.

After Evie woke up from her nap, I got the kids dressed and headed out to do some shopping. Both kids have outgrown their shoes (again!!!) so we hit up Payless first for some BOGO deals. I also had a 20% off coupon, which ended up getting us four pairs of shoes for $52, which was a pretty great deal (and Zach passed up the Cars shoes for some nice looking tennis shoes, which made it even better!).

Next we headed to Target for a few groceries to get us through the week and to let Evie pick out bedding for her new “big girl” bed. She’s been wanting to sleep in the bottom bunk bed for the last week or so, so I figured it’s time to make it hers. Target had some really cute (generic, non-Disney) bedding sets on clearance, but Evie was having none of that. We ended up with a comforter, sheets, and a throw pillow all in pink Disney Princesses (or “cin-cess”, as Evie says).

By the time we got home, had dinner, and got the kids settled and into bed, I was spent. I will admit that the little bit of retail therapy did help my mood, but I was exhausted. Just as Hubby and I were settling in to watch True Blood, I realized I still needed to fill out the preschool forms that I had set out earlier in the weekend. Instead of sitting back relaxing, I filled out a million forms, repeating the same info over and over again (seriously, can’t they just pull it all from one dang form?).

This morning, I woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. I’m still tired and a bit cranky. It’s still rainy and cruddy outside. And even though it seems like I had a bad weekend, it was good. Between all the cruddy, cranky, gripey, grumpiness going on, I still got to spend it with my three favorite people in the whole world. I still got lots of hugs, kisses, and zerberts. I still got to see my daughter’s face light up when she hugged her “cin-cess” pillow. I still got to listen to my son’s silly stories before I tucked him into bed for the night. I still got to snuggle up in bed with my Hubby after a long day. It was good. Maybe it was better than good. Maybe it was great.

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Is It Time For An Allowance?

Published by dee on August 13, 2009

Zachary is becoming much more interested in money here lately. He has had a couple of opportunities to make his own purchases at the store and really enjoyed it. We talked through the process first, told him how much money he had to spend, helped him choose which toys that were less than that amount, and then let him pay for them himself at the cash register. Ever since then, he keeps asking when he can buy more toys. I explain to him that he’ll have to save more money up before he can buy more toys. The problem is, he probably won’t be getting much money until his birthday rolls around again.

Is it time to start giving him an allowance?

My first response to that question is yes. I do think it is time. He’s interested and ready to start learning about money management. But, how do I go about it? Do I just give him a set amount every week, no matter what? Do I make him do chores in exchange for his allowance? At first I thought chores were the way to go, but the more I think about it I’m not so sure.

A while back I read an article about family responsibility (I would link but can’t remember where I read it). The basic premise was that things like cleaning and taking care of the house should be the shared responsibility of all members of the family (to the best of each member’s ability) and should not be done for any kind of expected reward, but for the good of the family. The only reward would be the natural consequence of the action (the child can easily find the toy they want because it is put away where it belongs) rather than receiving an allowance or other treats for doing something that should be expected of them as a member of the family unit.

Along with this argument, comes the fact that the true purpose of an allowance is to teach the child money management, not teach them to do chores. When giving an allowance, you should also be teaching your child to budget, save, and spend wisely (none of which I’m very good at myself).

On the flip side of that is the argument that as an adult he will be expected to work for his money. Zach knows that Mommy and Daddy go to work in order to have money for food, clothes, toys, etc. He understands that work is required to earn money. So, should I just hand him money with no expectations? Doesn’t that negate the idea that you have to put forth effort in order to meet your financial needs? I don’t know.

I’m still leaning toward an allowance in exchange for chores because it is what he has been asking for, but I’m thinking some things should just be expected of him without earning money for doing them as well. Maybe a base amount with a “bonus” if he keeps up with his chores would work? I don’t know.

I’m pretty sure I’m over thinking this whole thing, but I’m really curious to hear how other families handle it. Do your kids get an allowance? How old were they when they started receiving it? Do they do chores in exchange for earning allowance or are they just given a certain amount each week?

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Sometimes A Negative Can Be A Positive

Published by dee on July 21, 2009

Sunday night Hubby and I took advantage of my Mom’s offer to babysit and went to see Harry Potter. We had a nice time getting out by ourselves for a few hours (and the movie was awesome!). We got home, put the kids to bed, and soon headed to bed ourselves. Just before I got to bed I suddenly felt sick and threw up. I’m guessing it was the buttery popcorn I had at the movie, but who knows.

Monday morning I still felt a bit queasy and without thinking I posted to Twitter and Facebook something about how it sucked to start out Monday morning with a queasy stomach. When I got to work a while later I had a bunch of replies suggesting I was pregnant. Which of course was the same thing Hubby asked me when I got sick. Uh, no.

So as the day went on I felt a little better and by lunchtime I felt pretty much back to normal. (One more argument for the popcorn). I felt fine the rest of the night so I just blew the whole thing off.

Then Monday night I had the dream. In the dream I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. I freaked out. I didn’t know what to tell Hubby or how in the heck we would handle another child right now. I woke up in a frantic state. Then I realized it was just a dream. My head was racing but my stomach was feeling a bit off again.

Then little thoughts started creeping in. I am a couple days late (which isn’t unusual for me even while on the pill) and certain areas have been rather tender for the last week or so and I’ve been having a bit of pain in the pelvic area (which also isn’t unusual for me). Dang it. I prayed for the strength to accept whatever plan God had for our family. Then I had to go get a test just to be sure.

So I took the test and got a big fat negative. After about half a second of sadness, I let out the biggest sigh of relief ever. After years and years of trying so hard to get pregnant, I was actually relieved not to be. That was kind of a strange, almost foreign, feeling for me. It actually surprised me that I was so happy about the result.

The best part of all of this, is that it confirmed exactly what I’ve been feeling since the day Evie was born. Our family is perfect just the way it is right now, just the four of us. Some day we may decide we’re ready for another baby – but today is not that day.

Whew.

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