Why we didn't have a playdate

I had been looking forward to getting together with 4 other friends and their kids this afternoon, about one hour away from home. So much so that I had Audrey take an earlier nap so that we could get on the road at a decent time & she'd be refreshed and ready for a super fun playdate with friends! It got a little warmer today so I turned on our box standing fan, as well as one in the kitchen. I placed the box one conveniently right outside Audrey's closed door, hoping the sound of the fan would lull her to sleep, as well as prevent her from hearing me bang around in the kitchen trying to make some goodies to share with our friends. She went to sleep beautifully....or so I thought....and after I busied myself up, cared for Ellie, packed our bags & even took a shower, I walked to Audrey's room to wake her up so we could get going. I noticed her light was on and figured she must be awake and had just turned it on. I opened the door & immediately smelled my old friend, poop. Laying pant less, pull-up less and full stomach less was dear Audrey. I gasped when I saw poop inches from her, smashed into her sheet. More was on her beloved favorite blankets on the ground, a few had "rolled" under the bed....and I'd later find more behind the rocking chair and on several favorite animals.

I gasped "Audrey!" She didn't move. She was obviously pooped. Very, very pooped. So I turned off the light and left the room stunned. I called my friend to let her know we couldn't make it. Eventually Poopy McPooperson woke up, and while having a scream fest and many exhausted tears I coaxed her into the bath so I could do my scrubbin thang...

I later asked Audrey to retell me what had happened.... She explains her side of it best:

"I was saying: Mommmmy!! Mommy! I need to go poop! I need to go poop!"

and what did Mommy do?

"You didn't come. I was knocking, Mommy! Mommy!" (this Mommy couldn't hear over the fans...)

Then what did you do?

"I got right back into my bed and took my pull-up off to go poop"

And where did you poop?

"I pooped everywhere. (wasn't THAT the truth!) I pooped in my bed, then I put it on the floor. Then I turned on the light all by myself! I couldn't see my poops. I pooped some more over there & there & there...and there's some too!"

I apologized for not hearing her knock and yell for me, explaining how she did the right thing trying to let me know. I also emphasized key importance's like how we don't touch poops ever, ever, ever...and how she needs to stop pooping, altogether. (just kidding..)

Just another messy day in my life...lots of repeat cycle laundry today & keeping my Mommy confidence composure. And that, among this ridiculous choice for an outfit, is the reason why we couldn't make our playdate today...

Why we're home a lot, Reason #248

This day just begged to be written about...

After Ellie's AM nap I decided to take the girls to the grocery store. It was before Audrey's nap..which is always a little risky, but I decided to chance it, with the help of McDonalds fries on the way there to tide her over before lunch... ;-)

It's always more work in general to go anywhere with the girls, but getting in & out of the car seems to be one thing I always dread. I NOW LOVE DRIVE THRUS! Not that I personally didn't appreciate pharmacy trips on the way home from the hospital or enjoy burgers, fries, tacos or a large gallon size of Root Beer on my own.... but I now long for places like Quiznos, Great Harvest Bread & GROCERY stores (yeah right..) to get with the program & add a drive through window already! Geesh, don't these places think about Moms with small children?? It sounds silly but it's something we adults totally take for granted. One buckle & you're out & walking! Until you're a Mom.

Picture this: One buckle, open door. Put keys in pocket. Close door, open door #2. Strap baby carrier to self, making sure all those 23 buckles are in place. Lean in, unbuckle 2 buckles, remove baby from car seat. Strap baby in, buckle, buckle, buckle.. Close door. Walk around car, open door. Lean in & grab shopping cart cover from behind car seats for your pneumonia-ridden child. Place under arm pit. Unbuckle 2 buckles from antsy toddler. Instruct to hold sippy cup and any remainder of fries. Place antsy toddler on hip, while she continues to ask to walk, right beside baby in front pack and on the opposite side of shopping cart cover. Close door. Slightly panic because you're not sure if you remembered to put car keys within easy reach once you stepped out of car. Check pocket. Fumble through purse. Check other pocket. Remove keys, lock door behind you. Remain calm & walk with dignity & confidence. Hobble into store for shopping cart to situate the cover, children and your sanity before you begin shopping under a strict timeline of when someone gets cranky, poopy or hungry. Oh and at this point I've most likely received many a looks from the elderly population with a sigh & a tilt of the head of empathy remembering when...

Despite the chaos -before- actually entering the store, everything was going great, I was making wise & healthy food choices (okay somehow Fishy Crackers & a plastic inflated bright pink BALL got put into the cart....note to self: avoid that aisle next time...), we were on our way to the check stand.

I smiled & chatted with the check stand lady, glad we'd been quick enough everyone was still happy & that going down for a nap should be as routine as if we'd never left the house. And then I swiped my new credit card. The lady kindly informed me that they did not accept credit card there. I cried a little inside. I did a peripheral glance towards the growing line of people behind me. I died a little more inside when the man behind me readjusted himself with a tilt of the head out of impatience, no empathy from the middle-aged overweight impatient man population, apparently. I smiled & told the lady I could not pay. She offered to have them bag my things so that I could go get money & come back. She apparently was unaware how many buckles it takes to "go & come back"!!!!! :-) I agreed and after a small conversation about how this lady would need to have the beloved new pink ball back, which had already been explained to this lady that "this ball is mine. It's my ball.." I left my pride behind & walked out of that store just as we walked in. No groceries, but arms full.

Buckle, buckle, everyone back in car. This grocery store happened to be the one at the end of town, farthest away from our house, which just slightly added to the stress of "quickly going back home & back to the store" to reclaim my pride. We made it & I'm not even ashamed to say I left my children in the car while I ran inside our house to grab the cash on the counter I assumed I would not need due to new credit card. We live in a safe everyone-watches-out-for-one-another neighborhood & to my credit I locked them inside for the brief 27 seconds I was away. And if you're still judging my parenting and especially are not a parent read up a few paragraphs to see why I may have decided not to go through that again.. :-)

Back to the store, back to get our things, back home. Thankfully Audrey stayed pretty cheerful through the whole thing, and ended up taking a good long nap once we did finally get back home.

And Thankfully I actually did have money, just not when & where I needed it at the time.

Some days my loving husband suggests I take the girls someplace while he is away working, for fun. Some days he comes home from somewhere & encourages me such&such would be a fun little "outing" to go on with the girls, by myself, for fun. I continue to reassure him that sometimes it's just a lot of work, and that I enjoy being home and/or strolling somewhere instead. He is a wonderful daddy & an appreciative husband, but has, for the record, never taken the girls out together anywhere by himself besides once or twice to eager helpful grandparent hands. :-)

And, unfortunately, he may never now that I posted the logistics of what a car ride entails! :-/

YOU CAN DO IT!! :-)

Loving

I Love loving them.

Do weary Mommas deteriorate too?

While we were watching the adorable Pixar movie 'Toy Story' the other day, my sweet little verbal lady was listening to the main character "Woody" talk to the other toys. Audrey has seen this movie before, but for some reason she pinpointed a word in a sentence Woody used, and realized she didn't understand what it meant..... (I didn't see this one coming....)

"Mommy, do you know what 'corrosion' means?"

"Well sweetheart--"

This was about the time where my heart started pounding, my brow began to sweat and my mind raced into all the other words, ideas and philosophies that she will soon be asking where I won't know the answer. I can foresee the phrase "Hmm...Lets remember to ask Daddy when he gets home" becoming all too frequent in our future. She's two and a half!! I thought I had years of Mommy-knows-best wisdom ahead of me, looks like we may be down to, what? months?!

Friends, we are getting dangerously close to the day when she ultimately decides for herself that her Mommy doesn't know squat! Until then, I will continue faking it and using my ultra-confident "Mommy" voice to answer questions like these...

"--Woody is talking about the toys breaking. 'Corrosion' means when things break down."

Phew. It wasn't Wikipedia's definition for Corrosion.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrosion

buuuuuut I felt pretty good about how quickly and calmly I came up with my answer.

.......Safe for another day ;)

Ride On...

Ride on. Write on.

I would like to be writing right now. I'd also like to be "riding" to somewhere. Somewhere, where the scenery is beautiful & warm, where the dishes & laundry are non-existent and where there's no snot allowed.

I have lots of updates and pictures I would like to write about, but both girls are sick right now & I haven't had enough patience lately to use my "off" time (naps & bedtime)

to sit & wait for pictures to upload and Internet connection to be consistent.

Soon I hope.

For now, I leave you with this recent picture of Cowgirl Audrey, riding on...

Tidy Painting?

It started off just as planned. She was delighted to paint outdoors with Momma. Paints were carefully squeezed out into neat little proportionate blobs.

And I, being the clever little Momma that I am, provided the necessities for tidy painting.

Tidy painting?

Here, two-year-old, let's paint really nice clean lines on only the paper in front of you, using only the Q-tips I have provided....

Who am I kidding?

Go nuts!

So that's why I wear make-up!

"That's called 'make-up', it's for your cheeks for when you're happy...

because you don't have a tail to wag."

Juggling

Audrey took two big potatoes out of the bag, threw them into the air & said:

"Just Like Uncle Mike! Let's do Jug-a-war!"

I laughed & watched her pick them back up again, gathering her words better this time & say:

"Look Momma, like Uncle Mike does Jugg-a-lean!"

Uncle Mike is known for many funny tricks, silly sayings and of course his juggling expertise. And, by Audrey's inspiration, we will be having some very mashed potatoes tonight.... ;)

My 25th Birthday Weekend

Over a month ago, I celebrated my

25th birthday!

It was a big long weekend of fun memories....

Friday--Sadly, no pictures, but I got all dolled up & went out to dinner with some girlfriends! We laughed & chatted about life, kids, God, future, church, food, fears & how much we should do that more often. After living here for almost 3 years I finally feel like I am building some strong lady friendships, and I love it. Ever since being married I've gotten used to couple get-togethers. I took a girlfriend-hiatus for awhile, trying to get settled into married life, moving here, church hunting & of course being home raising the babies...but I am finding that taking the time to get to know other girls in my stage of life really is so worth it!

Saturday--I used spafinder gift certificates I had saved up for a fabulous massage at The Allison Inn & Spa. Hands down nicest place I have ever been to, let alone been to, to be pampered on. Everything about the experience was breathtaking. The entrance, the view, my fitted robe & slippers, cucumber mint chilled water, my very own "attendant" making sure I was taken care of, my 60min massage & how I got to hang my robe up on a heated rack, all the free amenities, the steam room I took full advantage of... Ah, bliss. I am not kidding, everything was so surreal & fancy it was so fun!! I figured going into it that I'll never be able to afford to go back, so I was happy to take my time & enjoy every second, but I only wished I could have shared that experience with someone else!

(Even the walk to get to the spa was calming & delightful! I felt a little too touristy taking pictures of everything and I really wanted to enjoy it, but took this quick snapshot as I entered & found my way to the spa desk...there were also waterfalls to the right)

(This was the woman's lounge area, closed off to the other areas of the spa. This is where I waited with my small plate of fancy nuts, dried fruit & cucumber water before my masseuse came to personally walk me back to the room...)

As if that wasn't enough for the day...then I got to come home to a clean house, courtesy of handsome hubby!!! Then that evening our bestest friends the Lampa's came over. While cooking & chasing kids I got to try my namesake, my first Gin & Tonic. They are pretty good! And not to be outdone by all her previous delicious handmade creations made in my home by her, Terese took it upon herself to bring all the fresh ingredients to make a delicious dinner to accompany Traeger steaks. YUM.

We also did some wine tasting, as usual. We began with my birth year bottle, a 1985 bottle of Cabernet, I had been given from my brother Tom for my 21st birthday that I had saved up. We were all skeptical not knowing if 25yrs of sitting would make it terrible or terribly good...but we were all very pleased with it!! It was also the oldest bottle any one of us had ever tried, so it was a really cool experience! Thanks again Tom!!!! :)

We ate, we drank, the kids played, we chased them, conversation was rolling & constantly being interrupted, we bathed the funny giggly kids...

We've grown to find out that we value our time with the Lampas so much that is is always worth it to stay overnight in order to get good conversation rolling once kids are in bed. We think it's so worth it to have such good friends like these that we vow to make it happen no matter what, as busy as our lives keep getting. Throwing the Aero Bed out on the living room floor is the usual, and we'll continue to just roll with it and adjust to each other's homes & kids, like how Noah slept in a playpen in our laundry room this time, by his Mommas suggestion... :)

We took plenty of pictures, none of which the kids were smiling all together (so here is the best one of precious Audrey). We put the kids to bed, we Mommy's put on our comfy PJs, put our feet up and sighed a relief of the days end... Conversations continued late into the night, uninterrupted this time but, like usual, the boys outlast us girls and we eventually ventured into our sleeping quarters knowing the morning was coming quickly...


Sunday--My actual birthday. We had a yummy full breakfast the next morning & then they left about nap time. We also left about nap time & headed over to Aaron's parents for another delicious dinner!! More marinated traeger juicy steaks YUM! Skillet potatoes&onions.. fruit.. bread..etc I can't remember it all but just know that my taste buds are watering of tasteful memories. Oh & cinnamon rolls for dessert!!! It was all so good & Tom & Julie always treat me so well & make me feel loved. (My Mom was in Egypt! So we got together with my family once she got back) Then I got to open some birthday gifts among them a gorgeous right hand ring from Julie!! I love it. She always picks out such nice thoughtful gifts.

What a fun way to turn 25! It really was a great weekend. :)

Cheers to 25!!

Fresh Air

Finally, we have some sunny days to get outside & for the first time ever, enjoy sitting & playing in our very own grassy backyard!! We can't wait for the weather to be consistantly this good.

We absolutely LOVE our backyard...Daddy worked SO hard for us!!

It has come a long way from many piles of uneven dirt.

Helping plant some tomatoes, pepper, & basil starts for our garden window, then eventually for our raised garden in the backyard

....my first time gardening!!!