Whoa child, slow your roll

I'm sitting here drinking my coffee (from my new Keurig!) and eating cinnamon roll cake before my kids wake up. I really, really need the time to myself these days.

You see, we have a problem in our household of epic proportions. I don't know what happened here, but sometime in the last four weeks, Gabriel has become what I can only describe as...a moody teenage boy. I wish I were joking, but we are dealing with some major behavioral issues and we're grasping at straws trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Not listening, not wanting to say hello to any of his family, blatantly lying to me, throwing HUGE tantrums like a 1-year old, refusing to pick up his toys...the list goes on and on and on.

We can't really pinpoint when this whole thing started, but I am sure it's a combination of things. When he was sick, we just let him lay around all day long and obviously didn't make him go to school. With the holidays, he hasn't been to school in about a week anyway, so his routine is completely messed up. His grandparents - my in-laws - have been coming OFTEN and they tell me, in front of him, to stop disciplining him (because how dare I discipline the little darling angel in front of them?!) so that kind of throws a kink in things.

And then the whole Christmas thing where he's spoiled without having to be good? Yeah, that really doesn't help.

I thought that lazy Elf on the Shelf would do the trick but nope. He could care less.

So now I'm in the early stages of building a behavioral chart with rewards and goals and consequences and hoping wishing praying to the good Lord that it works. This is too ridiculous.

Thank GOODNESS he goes back to school today or else I might end up crying in my closet.

Are your kids going whacko because it is the holidays? What have you done about it?

Merry Christmas!

So many great things this week. So many happy memories. So many devilish eyes in photos. I guess that's what happens when you rely on an iPhone in the evening with bad lighting. Whatever.

My family. This is the first picture in five years that has included all of us siblings. Having my brother back was...interesting. A good interesting.

 
Nat and I didn't get the memo that we were looking cute...

SANTAAAAAAAAAA.

So excited to open presents!!!

And the best part? Having little babies means they don't wake up at the crack of dawn and come pounce on us to get up...yet. We actually prolonged the opening of gifts so we could throw a breakfast casserole and cinnamon roll cake in the oven.

I had the lovely pleasure of hosting my parents and siblings at our house. It was so nice to play games, eat, relax and enjoy each other all day long.

I'm just so happy. I have no more words.

How was your Christmas?? Was Santa good to you?

My heart hurts

Like most of you, I have been unable to clear my head. Between the photos of those sweet, precious little faces on Facebook and the constant coverage of the Sandy Hook tragedy on the internet and TV, there has been no escaping it.

My heart hurts.

My mind is reeling.

For a few minutes, an hour maybe, it'll slip my mind. But then something will remind me of what happened and the anger comes back. The fear. The sympathy for the ones left behind.

I think of the parents who will have to stare at presents left unopened under the Christmas tree. I think of the husband of the principal - a hero, who put her life on the line for her kids - and the pride that he must feel through the pain. The family of the teachers who were so incredibly brave that day.

I have seen a lot of anger directed towards those who believe this issue is about gun control. People frustrated by the state of mental health care in the United States. People are blaming the lack of religion in schools.

People are angry and other people are pointing fingers because how dare they make this a political issue or a health issue or a security issue or a religious issue?

How dare they lack sympathy?

How dare they make this a political agenda?

Because we all want something to blame so that we can start to somehow put together the pieces in our head as to how and why this happened. So we can understand and fix.

I say, let people cope with this indescribable, awful event the way that they will. Some people respond with anger. Some are called to action. Some cry and kiss their kids. It's okay.

It's okay to grieve in whatever way you grieve. Let's all stop pointing fingers at each other. Let's take a few days to figure out where we go from here. And then, let's get angry. Let's get frustrated.

Let's make changes so we - as parents, as citizens, as human beings - can try to prevent these God-awful things from occurring.

In the meantime, I'm going to start with hugging my kids a little tighter. To honor the victims by making each day special for my boys. By showing kindness to friends and strangers alike.

That is where change starts.

What to expect when you're...

As I type this, I literally feel like I need to prop my eyelids open just to keep from falling asleep. I haven't been able to stay up past 8:00 pm since like...two or three weeks?

Attempting to create something for dinner that doesn't entail pouring milk and cereal into a bowl is excruciating. My body aches like I just ran a marathon (not that I even know what that is like).

I can't even talk about my boobs. The thought sends me into painful shivers. I can't wear a bra, yet letting it hang all freeballs is just...too...much. My only saving grace for this pain is to lay flat on my back with them just plopped up. Nice visual, right?

I guess I should just go ahead and say it. 

I'm weaning.

As we approach Jonas' first birthday in a few short weeks, we've reduced some of his daytime nursing sessions so that he is nursing longer in the morning and the evening, but not during the day.

At first I thought it was from being sick last week but no. This is ridiculous. I've been googling scary shit all night that is telling me I may or may not have diabetes or heart disease or a million other awful things but then it sort of dawned on me.

I AM NOT PREGNANT. It is 99.999999999999999999999% impossible. At least I think so. The week before being sick I felt normal. I started weaning about a week or two ago and it just so happens that this is the time frame in which I've been feeling fatigued. 

Exhausted. 

via

Seriously, neither of those words cover it.

After my google sesh, I realized that this is like the thing nobody talks about. I didn't experience it at all with Gabriel. There are like 3 articles on fatigue and achiness and yet 234,629,094 on mood swings and engorgement.

I'm convinced that the boob pain may be mastitis because this is unlike any plugging of ducts I've ever had. And I've had a lot. 

So tell me, if you're early preg and feeling fatigued or weaning and feeling fatigued or just plain feeling fatigued, what the heck do you do to make it through the day? Right now I'm relying on spaghetti. And cereal. And ordering pizza. All of which do not happen to be in my preferred wheel of healthy eating. 

And hey, if you experienced this while weaning, tell me! I'm feeling like a freak and my husband is convinced I need to exercise...which may or may not be true.

Where did last week go?

...and all of a sudden, it's December.

Last week was pretty much a blur. I had intended to cook dinner all week, work on some different projects around the house, continue Christmas crafting and complete a bunch of work. But then the week from hell happened and I got none of those things done.

On Monday afternoon, I ended up getting sicker than I think I've been in at least six years. It was bad. I think I may have had strep throat but I'm not sure and I just couldn't make myself do the 2 hour drive to go to the doctor. I had a fever, chills, sore throat and headache and at one point I swear I was hallucinating that Jonas had six fingers.

Adrian had his own hellish week and I couldn't expect for him to help me out when he was pulling 13+ hour days.

And, of course, I worked 25 hours last week. Um, that hasn't happened since I was actually employed full time. I'm not complaining, it was come back to me when I invoice the clients and it couldn't come at a better time. 

Anyway, I am feeling back on track this week, ready to tackle the day and basically put back together the shitstorm of a house that I'm staring at right now. 

I'm about to do some meal planning...tell me, what are your go-to meals? I need some inspiration!

Here are some photos from last week:

Technology will take over your soul

Don't get me wrong, I'm a tech junky. I love that shit. I have a smart phone and an iPad and a laptop and every now and then in the evenings after my sweet, darling, little angels are asleep, you might find all three fired up around me. 

Overload? Probably. 

But what I saw at the mall the other day made me question my faith in the institution of family. It was just plain sad. I'm sitting at the table with Jonas eating my weekly Sweet Teryaki from the Great Steak whatever it's called, not minding my own business. I look to my left because I'm hearing a commercial or something and had to do a double take.

This poor woman is sitting at the table gazing off into nothing, probably daydreaming about some hot latin pool boy while her teenage boy and husband are watching shows on their separate iPads and eating their lunch. 

They would laugh at their show, take a bite, and repeat, not saying one word to each other. 

I make an effort not to pull my phone out during a meal, while interacting with my boys or when I'm spending time with others. I find a person who can't disconnect, even for just a few minutes, to be rude and inconsiderate. Granted, an emergency or a one-time, have to talk to this person right now thing is forgivable. 

Making it a habit? Not so much.

There are certain places where I know Adrian and I could improve (he is a repeat offender and it drives me craaazy),  especially not bringing technology to bed. I really do hate when it imposes on our...ahem...together time? 

We do try to shut off at a certain time and watch a show or look up random stuff on the internet together, but sometimes I miss the times when I was pregnant with Gabriel and instead of being so "on" all the time, we would play cards or board games all night long.

It's that. That stimulation that comes with looking people in the eyeballs, actually communicating without LOLing and LMAOing and making synapses fire in your brain, that's the good stuff. The stuff that you lose out on when your eyes are glued to a computer, a phone, a tablet, geeking out with your internet friends and playing weird warcraft games.

Does your family struggle with this? Do you have any rules to make sure all that techy stuff doesn't take over your life?

GFC Blog Hop

Hi Friends,

Come join in, link up and find some new, great blogs!

It's Tuesday again which means it's time for the GFC Blog Hop!

When I want to follow a blog the first thing I look for is GFC (Google Friend Connect), it's so easy and  nice to be able to go and see all of the blogs you follow in one spot. It's really a great tool to have. 

One side note- Did you know you can follow through GFC using your Twitter Account? TRUE, it's definitely an option!

Ok, so let's get to the party, shall we?

RULES are simple:

1. Follow your host via GFC

The First link below

2. Follow your co-hosts via GFC

The Next 8 links below

3. Link up below using your main blog url not a specific post.

4. Make sure to visit some of the blogs in the link up and follow them via GFC 

and if you want to leave them a comment, I'm sure they'd appreciate that as well.

5. Tweet about this blog hop

Tweet

6. Share about this blog hop by grabbing a button and putting it on your sidebar!

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Hard work: flower beds and walk way

This weekend we were so lucky to have my sister-in-law and her family here for a quick visit. They were awesome about getting their hands dirty with us as we continue knocking away at our large laundry list of things to do around the house. 

As we sat watching the kids play and my father-in-law finish the grading that he started a few weeks ago in the front yard, I mentioned to my SIL that I was planning to rip up all of the nasty weeds in the front flower beds and plant something pleasant to look at.

Before you know it, my brother-in-law and all of the kids are ripping up weeds while she and I jump in the car to head to Home Depot.

I'm so thankful that she was here to help me because I would never have known the difference between perennials and annuals, what soil to buy and where things grow best.

Okay, okay. I got a little carried away photographing the flowers...

...and babies...

He was so fascinated by the dirt! We'll come back to him in a minute.

Since we will be adding a circular driveway and parking in the front yard, we knew we'd need a pathway through the flower beds.

Lining it so pesky weeds don't grow through the rock.

Pretty stones! I know that I want a little more contrast though, so we're going to try to find some darker stones to mix in with these.

We're making progress and I'm loving it! Our next project is going to be the grass and laying out the driveway. This will be the most expensive part of our outdoor project as we're planning to plant some trees, do some landscaping and lay everything out with railroad ties. I also picked out some paint samples for the kitchen and will hopefully be working on that in the next week.

What's up in your world?

Christmas Tree Pallet Project

I'll admit it, I'm one of those obnoxious people who gets into the Christmas spirit about 4 weeks ahead of everyone else. I just put up Fall decor and I'm pretty sure by the end of this weekend I will have torn it down, replacing acorns and pumpkins with snowmen and santas. Thank God my husband loves me despite my crazy.

Anyway, I saw this on Pinterest and after checking out the huge stack of pallets in the backyard left by the previous owners, I knew it was about to get all Christmas up in the club. The picture is a little different than mine (aka, she used super cool font and different colors) but I'm pretty much in love with the way it turned out.

Here is my extremely non-scientific, clumsy, not-the-right-name-for-any-of-the-tools awesome tutorial for my very merry Christmas tree.

What you'll need (all of this is critical, super important stuff):

-Pallet
-Stake
-+ all of this stuff below...

STEP ONE:

Use middle beam of pallet as the backbone of your tree. Cute boards in the shape of a tree with the saw.

Hack away at other pieces of board if necessary. That's what the hammer is for. To wield against the dark forces of board-dom.

STEP TWO:

Spray paint tree green. Or don't. I wanted mine green because, well, it's a tree.

Let it DRY.

STEP THREE:

Once tree is dry, get your grater thingy out. You also may sub this for sand paper/handheld sander. I would have used the alternative had my husband not misplaced the sandy supplies in the move. Hence weird grater thing.

Sand the edges of your tree for a distressed look. Don't like distressed? Don't do it. I do. So I did.

STEP FOUR:

My first thought was to just trip down the backbone of the pallet, but then it was too thick and my saw was sucky and so I walked through my backyard and found a stake. I drilled it onto the back using two screws. Easy peasy. (Like my work boots?)

STEP FIVE:

Use coffee grounds to darken edges.

Again, not entirely necessary, but I liked that it didn't look like brand new wood underneath. I used a paper towel (could use one of those little metal scrubber things) to rub them all over the edges and then wiped them off with a rag.

STEP SIX:

Decorate.

I wrote "May your days be merry and bright" because I'm not creative and that's what the other girl wrote. It has a nice ring to it. I used glitter on the letters and acrylic paint for the writing.

The paparazzi was all up on me while I was glitterating.

The only change I may make is to outline/darken the brown. In person it is readable but in these pictures it blends in a little too much.

Are you into the Christmas spirit yet? When will you be decorating??