Tuesday, August 13, 2013

a trophy wife

Theres a lingering question that comes to my mind often, almost daily in fact, am I keeping my husband first or are my kids winning that battle? And trust me on this, it is a battle. I think a lot of wives can relate, maybe even wives who dont have kids? Sadly, I think its quiet easy to put the "man of our dreams" on a book shelf and rarely pay much attention to his desire to be dusted off. I'm not sure if most would agree with me but I  do think the man we chose to be our life partner for the rest of our lives, should come first.  However, when i sit back and look at my daily living, I"m not so sure if my actions line up with  my beliefs. Don't you hate when that happens? its the awful reality that were all in need of a little grace because clearly its impossible to be perfect, but boy do we try, especially us moms, we try so very very hard to be perfect and its exhausting half the time.

Lately my grocery bags have been filled with almond milk, oatmeal, bananas, berries, organic kashi bars, ground turkey, hummus, almond butter all things for the boys. No steak, no hamburger meat, no lays chips, no mushrooms, no cows milk all things my husband adores. Our outings consist of the zoo, the train museum,  the farmers market, and countless trips to target. Dannys favorite things to do: go to the movies, have a beer at a pub, watch a sporting event, go hike up a mountain (brutal) or just stroll through any sporting goods store.   Even my chores have started putting the boys first, I fold & put away all their clothes and simply stack dannys in a pile thinking "he's grown, he knows where his clothes go." Eh, it sounds so rude just typing it. My goal isn't to be rude or disrespectful or unloving I'm just trying to make things easier throughout my day, but once it all goes down on paper, rude, disrespectful and unloving is exactly what it looks like.

Before we were even engaged we were looking for wedding rings/bands and theres a comment Danny made that I will never forget. I was suggesting he get just a simple band nothing too fancy and he responded with "girl, I want to look like i won the super bowl." ;) it was really funny at the time and a little cheesy but it made my heart melt. What he said is a constant reminder for me.. that i do indeed want to make him feel like he did win the super bowl when he chose me, out every girl he had ever known, he chose me to spend the rest of his life with. That may be a tall order to fill and more than likely I will fail at meeting the requierments but i'm hoping that maybe the lord will blind my husbands eyes in the areas where i lack ;) he can do that you know?!

Most days before I even get out my bed, I ask the Lord for patience, strength, and wisdom... for days with the boys  ;) and I also ask that the Lord shows me how i can serve my husband better, that today i will hopefully be a better wife than i was yesterday.

And for the record, I think that since i made no argument against having ribs with kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner two nights ago is a step in the right direction... regardless of the toll it may take on our health. ;)

love you danny ruth. you will always by my favorite. ;)

Friday, August 9, 2013

potty talk & famous friends

So hudson wants to pee standing up now, as if we didn't already have enough issues with this whole potty training thing, now we have to have a whole discussion about how to position our body once were in the bathroom. And now this need to stand up too pee just brings in a whole other topic i just am not quiet ready for... the aiming. i literally am coaching my two year old on how to aim his pee into his little lime green potty (which by the way was $5 at ikea and hands down my favorite one out of the 3 we have). going to the potty has now become a bit more interesting, a bit more comical and a bit more educational than i ever intended it to be.

after he lets me know he needs to go pee pee, I always say "well do you want mommy to help you or do you want to go by yourself?" He usually says he wants to go by himself but then once he gets in there he yells for me to come and informs me that he is going to "stand like daddy." he then pulls his pants down (all the way to his ankles of course), positions himself in front of his potty, scoots his toes to where they are slightly touching the potty, bends his knees and then turns to me and say "i go potty mum mum" (i'm not quiet sure when i became a teething biscuit but him calling me "mum mum" might be the cutest thing ever).  And then the child pees...right in the potty, but after a few days of doing this he now has learned that he has "control" of the aim...

 and so here i go continuing on my journey of what life is like raising boys.

in other news i am beyond clueless on how to hang a gallery wall without either putting 17 extra non needed holes in the wall or losing my mind. ugh, why does hanging pictures have to be so difficult?! there has to be some kind of invention that i dont know about?! I just hope that it doesnt come known to me once the project is done, kind of like frog tape and a paint edger did. seriously, two rules when painting your entire house yourself...frog tape & a paint edger are a must. Needless to say, i gave up on the picture hanging so theres a half done wall that has two 11 x 14 frames on it, that are empty and have random holes around them,but whatever, im praying for an invention or maybe an "intervention" by my super handy man (cough, cough) hubs.  But for now, we moved on to bigger & better things, like re-staining our stair case rail, from oak to a dark walnut. and oh man have we been dying to get rid of the oak rail since we moved in, but kept putting it off because we just weren't sure how to do it until one magical day at the kennesaw public library.

Last week the boys and I went to the library for story time, we were late bc i let hampton take his much needed morning nap, so turned out we missed the whole thing and there wasn't a kid in sight.  I left the boys to play in the kid section while i gathered some books for them to check out. A few minutes later a mom with two kids pretty close to my boys ages came to the children's area as well.  We started talking and pretty much couldn't stop talking. Our boys got in trouble by the librarian for running and our two little ones were crawling in every which direction. She then invited us to chick fila once we realized it was getting way past lunch & nap times. I accepter her offer and off to a play lunch date we went! Turns out, my new friend Kelly, is a blogger... like a big time blogger. like has business cards blogger. i was so intrigued, i felt like i was having lunch with a famous person. i love blogging, i love writing, and i always have, but it was the lack of caring about punctation, spelling and grammar that always kept me away from it ("obviously" says every reader who has read my blog). But yah, so now I follow her DIY blog and the other day she posted on how to stain your stair case, isnt that such a God thing?! One of the very first projects we were wanting to do but didn't know how and then i meet a random mom at the library who is the only other mom there and turns out she is a DIY blogger and 2 days after i meet her she post a blog on how to stain your stair case?! cool huh?

So we started our new project today thanks to kelly at www.viewalongtheway.com. And I'm so excited about the end results. I now have two famous blogging friends.

oh and hudson pee'd in the middle of chick fila, first time we didn't get a "my pleasure" after saying thank you. eh.


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

a bit more than 9 to 5

There are so many days that i feel like i fail at my job. Did i get all the training that i need? Do I have a supportive boss? Do I have coworkers to cover for me? Do i have coworkers to share a break with? Do i even have co workers?

as a stay at home mom you are your own boss, there are no coworkers, just employers running/crawling around making pee puddles and eating unidentified objects, there are no breaks and i never received any training that i can remember... unless you count the pamphlets they gave me the day we left the hospital. 

i brought life into this world and not a soul told me what to do with these little creations, but somehow by the grace of god I have kept the alive and I have kept them well. Some days I'm not so sure about the latter part of that statement. and really there are many days that i am so maxed out that i feel like i have nothing left to give to my kids. i often wonder how much my "maxed out" feeling effects them. do they know when i'm completely exhausted, do they know when i'm on the verge of breaking, do they know when i'm just flat out done?

no one prepared me for this position. no one told me how my heart would ache for a two year old who cant keep his underwear dry. no one warned me about the mountains of laundry or that would i have to do the dishes 3 times a day. no one told me about the loneliness of staying home so your one year old can nap instead of meeting up for a play date. no one told me the emotional roller coaster being a mother would feel like. no one told me about the physical tiredness of some days being so robotic that you cant even remember what you did that day. no, no one told me.

but for some reason, unknown to me, the lord hired me, he thought i would be a good fit, that maybe i could further his company with these two little bodies. with no past experience other than having a love for baby dolls my entire childhood, i am certainly far from qualified to be a mother. 

two and half years into this and not much has changed since the day i walked into this position. the hours are still long, the pay is non existent, there are no promotions and the employers are still as helpless as ever, but one thing is for sure... the benefits are overflowing. yes, being a mother is by far the hardest yet most rewarding "job" ive had in my short 28 years and though there are many many nights where i lay down thinking of how much i must of failed them, i can only hope that the one who hired me has no problem picking up my slack. 

Monday, August 5, 2013

Farmers Market

We went to the Farmers Market this weekend in downtown Marietta. It wasn't as blissful as you see in the movies but we managed to have a pretty good time even though danny didnt let me buy a chicken. Seriously organic eggs are $4 a dozen surely its just cheaper to have your own chicken?! Especially a peach eating chicken!


if that doesnt scream georgia I dont know what does. a peach eating chicken, as my papa would say, "i haven't seen nothin like it since the war."

We forgot to pack the stroller so I had to wear hampton, is it weird that i love being a kangaroo? That would make an awesome halloween costume huh?  too far? maybe. 


Danny was on the search for the hottest peppers he could find along with some tomatoes in order to make some homemade salsa. That man is crazy in the kitchen yall, he watches way too many cooking shows. 




After picking up some peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, a dozen of eggs and a cantaloupe, we hung out in the square for a while! Hudson loves playing on this train and its a great place to just relax because there is so much shade! Great people watching too. ;) I told danny that I was almost certain that I could line up every kid there on one side and all the parents on another and match them up with who goes with who. Great game! 




Afterwards we headed back home for naps and salsa making (the dip not the dance). 



See all those veins in that green pepper? more veins mean more heat. yikes. 

The farmers market really was a great family trip! Looking forward to going back in a week or two! I love the idea of knowing exactly where our food comes from and knowing who grows and sells it! Really neat if you think about it!