Love & Pretzels

We gave Judah a bag of pretzels to help himself to and within minutes he dumped the entire bag on the living room floor. Wesley squealed in delight and scurried right over to help himself. Judah ran for his truck and started running it over the pretzels. Minutes later he grabbed his race cars and was racing them through the pretzels, making roads lined with pretzels. And snacking as he played.

Normally the extra messes aren't the slightest bit enjoyable. But this poem I shared earlier this week came to mind. Specifically:

Love leaves the dust in search of a child's laugh.

Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints in a newly cleaned window.

I need to figure out a way to display that poem in a place that I will always be looking at it, I love it and am so glad Richella shared it.

Pipecleaner Airplanes

The forecast for the beach was rain, so we stayed home and played with pipe cleaners. We made letters and shapes with them, and when Judah got tired of that the pipe cleaners were turned into airplanes.

The Beach

If the rain holds off this is where we'll be today!

Love

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but have not love--I am a housekeeper, not a homemaker.

If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements but have not love, my children learn of cleanliness--not godliness.

Love leaves the dust in search of a child's laugh.

Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints in a newly cleaned window.

Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk.

Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.

Love is present through the trials.

Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.

Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.

As a mother there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.

Quoted on a recent blog post on Imparting Grace

How to Make Cappucinnos... I think

Does anyone else see the head of a bunny on the top of this cappuccino? I noticed that after I took the picture and thought it was kind of funny =)

Monday night we were invited over to a friends house for dinner. Her mother was in town and was cooking a special dinner complete with cappucinno's with dessert. I only sipped at Paul's as caffeine in the evenings and I don't mix well, but it inspired me and I have been making my own cappuccinos at home since then :)

It is fairly simple to do.

Start with brewing a pot of strong coffee.
Bring some milk to a boil.
Pour coffee into your mug, leaving several inches at the top.
Add sugar to your coffee.
Pour the amount of milk you will need for your mug into a smaller bowl or another mug and froth with an electric frother thing.
Add the frothed milk to your mug of coffee and sprinkle cinnamon on top.
Stare at the top until you see what design appears in the top of your mug.

I don't know how you're suppose to make real cappuccinos, and if you regularly make real ones and reading these instructions made you laugh at me, then this obviously wasn't written for you :) I suppose I should google it to see if there is a proper way for this to be done - but this way TOTALLY WORKS FOR ME!

Part of WFMW

Free Food!

Click on the image to go to the SCHWAN'S website where you can get a $10 or less item for free if they deliver to your area. I just ordered 8 2oz steaks to use for special breakfasts, which is Paul's favorite meal. They're delivering Friday and I'll have to pay .5 cents at the door. Can't beat that!!

Thanks Kristin for reminding me of this!

Date Night

Last year when Paul broke his wrist one of his nurses told us about a hotel that does a Steak and Seafood Buffet on Friday and Saturday evenings.
We just recently got around to going and it was amazing. A*M*A*Z*I*N*G

We dressed up and made a special date out of it. It is expensive, but so, so worth it!
We were impressed with the quality and selection of food - even the dessert was incredible. In fact, it was the best restaurant dessert either of us had ever had.
We tried carrot cake, pecan pie and cheesecake, and they were as good - or better than! - homemade.

The salad bar and the pasta bar weren't very impressive, but who goes to a Steak and Seafood buffet to eat pasta or salad?!

I tried crab legs for the first time and was pleasantly surprised. They were pretty good, and it was really fun to sit and chat with Paul and crack crab legs.

Cell phone pics of the food:

Moments

Savoring moments.
And having toy cars trying to sneak down my shirt.
I love mommy-ing.

Peacock Crossing

I want to get a sign for our street that says "Peacock Crossing."

Our neighborhood has a wild peacock that has taken up residence at a couple different homes in the neighborhood. I have taken my camera out several times to get pictures of it and can never find it when I have the camera with me and yet FOUR times now it has crossed the street right in front of me when I didn't have my nice camera.

I snapped this picture with my cell phone camera, which is very poor quality.
Hopefully some day I will be able to find him when I have my camera with me, he is beautiful!

Hair and a Motorcycle

Judah bought himself this motorcycle at a yard sale yesterday, and he's rather proud of that fact. He's told Paul several times "Look! Motorcycle! Judah BOUGHT it."

This two year old stage is nothing short of wonderful. I adore everything about Judah being 2. His conversations crack me up, daily.

His newest thing? He doesn't want me kissing him. But he can kiss me.
If I kiss him I hear this;
"No mommy, you can't kiss Judah. Judah kisses mommy."
"YUCKY!! Mommy kisses YUCKY!"

Um. Ok.
Maybe my feelings should be hurt, but they're not. I am simply amused.

Baby Blues

My brother, Caleb, took these two pictures of Wesley and they capture him so well - toothy smiles and eyes to drown in.

He's doing great since his surgery on Thursday - back to his cheery little dare-devil self.

Guacamole

This is my current favorite grocery item - it has been on sale for $3.50 for the past few weeks at our grocery store and you can't beat the price - Avocados are $1+ each and this Guacamole is made from FIVE avocados! It doesn't have any artificial ingredients and it tastes as good as the homemade stuff.
Wesley loves eating it by the spoonful and the rest of us enjoy it with chips or on turkey sandwiches. If you enjoy guacamole and haven't yet tried this product I would highly recommend it.

"OH NO! Judah's Hair All Gone!"

It was ridiculously long.

So while Paul was away I cut it.
He gets back later today and I can't wait to see what he thinks.
I didn't tell him I was going to cut it.

I cut off more than I had originally intended to. At one point I said "Uh-oh."
Judah said "Judah's hair being bad?"
Then he put his hand up to his head and said "OH NO!! Judah's hair all gone."
Seriously - it's not that bad.

In fact I took him to the mall last night and he got at least a dozen compliments on his cute curls. And EVERYONE called him a boy. Prior to the haircut 90% of people complimenting him thought he was a girl.

And yes, he has had his hair cut before. About 6 weeks ago I had 3 inches cut off his hair. His hair grows SO fast!

Photos are compliments of my brother, Caleb.

Made at Home Junk Food

Onion Rings are one of our favorite junk foods. I'm glad they take a little bit of work to make, otherwise we'd be eating them WAY more often than we should!! What's your favorite junk food to make at home?

He May Talk Like Me, But He Dresses Like You

Paul laughs and says that Judah is *just* like me when he chatters on. And on. And on. Judah comes up with the funniest things to say at bed time, when he is trying to stay up a bit later or trying to keep us in the room with him.
This was a one sided conversation Judah had with me the other night - in the span of about 20 seconds. He's a fast talker!

"Hi Mommy!
Daddy be right back.
I don't want Max. (his stuffed toy from Where the Wild Things Are.)
Bye Max! (Tosses Max over the bed)
There's an Elephant.
Mommy, there's an elephant.
Hi elephant.
It's ok.
It's ok elephant.
Don't cry."


And while Judah definitely gets his gift of gab from ME - he gets his sense of style from Paul. This is what Judah insisted on wearing to church on Sunday:



A red shirt. A pink tie. A black vest. A black jacket. Cars pj pants. Sneakers. And his Curious George book.

Married with Children - date idea #5

I think it is super important to take the time to learn to enjoy the things your spouse enjoys. Paul gets off easy as my enjoyments are cooking and photography - who wouldn't love all things related to those subjects?!

Paul has done an excellent job at learning and enjoying my interests and it really makes life FUN that my husband enjoys the things I do and I can sit down and talk to him about what spices would go well with what kind of meat and I can show him the newest things I have learned with my camera and he gets it. In fact, he gets it so well a DSLR camera for him is next on our list of things to purchase. I LOVE that!!

I have a bit more of a challenge though, as Paul's interests are working out and other rugged, manly activities like mountain biking, kayaking and um. Skydiving. Not that he's done skydiving yet. But he plans on doing it and he thinks I am going to do it with him =)

Before we were married I had never touched a free weight, grunted in public under the strain of something heavy (actually, I had never grunted in public period.), or felt good about being sweaty.
A couple of months after we said I DO Paul signed us up for a gym membership and he introduced me to this strange world of physically exerting yourself by your own free will.
For the past 4 years I have shown various degrees of interest in working out with him. It was easy when we didn't have children - we could go to the gym whenever we wanted (now we need to wait for the nursery to be open!) and I wasn't in a state of constant exhaustion.
I didn't workout through either pregnancy and I asked Paul to leave me alone about working out for the first 6 months following the boys births, and he did.

Oddly enough, over the past few months of working out with Paul - and specifically the past three weeks where we have been serious about working out - I have truly developed an enjoyment for working out.

The point of this all-over-the-place post is this: take the time to learn your spouses hobbies and interests and learn to enjoy them. It's taken me 4 years to say that I truly enjoy working out - and I never would have thought I would say that I enjoy it! Start out by participating in your husbands hobbies because you enjoy being near him and doing things with him, and ask him to join you in your hobbies.

And for a specific date-at-home-while-children-sleep idea: One day Paul came home with a rose and, once the boys were down for a nap, told me we were going to spend the afternoon taking pictures of the rose with military/manly things. It was a cute idea and a fun at home date!
This is my favorite picture from that date:


I blew it up and framed it for his office.

What hobby of yours or your husbands can you enjoy together,and turn into a date?

I Heart My Sons Urologist

When Judah had his circumcision the doctor had to stop mid way through because something didn't look right. We were then referred to a urologist who completed Judah's circumcision without a problem. After that experience I read quite a bit about it and came to the conclusion that we would always see a urologist to perform our sons circumcisions.

We happen to have found a urologist we love. Like I'd almost put a bumper sticker on my car that says I heart my sons urologist, but that just sounds a little wrong. But we do love the doctor. He's got a great sense of humor and we have just connected with him.

When Wesley was born the urologist couldn't perform the circumcision right away (I think he was out of town that week) and when we did make it into his office a few weeks later he was concerned about a hydrocele Wesley had and said that he would wait until Wesley was 1 yrs old and hopefully the hydrocele would go away on its own and if not then he would do both surgeries at the same time.

Long story short, yesterday was the day of Wesley's surgery. Paul wasn't able to be there with me as he had to work, but Wesley was a trooper and did great! The nurses gave him this stuffed tiger before hand and he just cracked up at the sight of the tiger - it was funny watching him :)

While we were waiting in a room for the nurse to take Wesley from me the Anesthesiologist came in the introduce himself to me.
He said to me "Could you please verify the nature of the surgery?"
I said "A circumcision and correctional surgery for the hydrocele."
He said "Very good."
And then turning to Wesley said "What a cute little girl!"
I said "Um. It's a boy."
And he was extremly embarassed and said "Oh yes, the circumcision part should have given that away."

Um. Or his medical chart if you'd read it.

They had Wesley back in surgery for about 3 hours and when I finally got to see him again he was so drowsy and out of it - it was so sad to see! We took him to prayer meeting with us last night as he seemed to be feeling ok, and he was fine. A bit more mellow than normal perhaps. He woke up a couple times through the night crying in pain and I kept him on his pain meds and rocked him back to sleep. Today he seems a bit uncomfortable but is otherwise his enegetic, hungry and cheerful self.

It is hard seeing your child in pain and going through something outside their scope of understanding.

Married with Children - date idea #4

Before Judah was born we did (at least!) weekly dates to the coffee shop. We would take our favorite magazine, book or game and sit with each other. Sometimes we had deep conversations, other times we were lost in our own books. It was cozy. And I think it was Paul's favorite date activity.

We have tried to recreate that same environment here in our home. We buy nicer coffee, brew a pot and sit and relax with each other over a cup of coffee. Or Chai tea :) Chai is a favorite here too.
We've tried to make our back porch a cozy place to sit - special lighting, over sized blankets- and that is where we take our cups of coffee to.

It's not that sitting with cups of coffee on our back porch is a special date activity, but it's recreating a date that we use to love doing that is special.

What was your favorite pre-child outside the house date? Is there an easy way to recreate that in your home to surprise your husband?

Sleeping with Food

The other end of that piece of spaghetti was in his mouth.

Married with Children - date idea #3

We use to get Netflix and I would keep a list of "date movies" in the que and add them to the top of the list when a date night was coming up. We don't do Netflix any more, but we do use Redbox if we are wanting to pick up a movie to watch. Redbox makes it easy to look up and reserve a movie on their website so you aren't stuck standing at the box trying to decide what you want!

We also watch a few TV shows together. We don't have cable tv, but as soon as we can after the shows air we watch them online together.
It's nice having so many shows available to watch online, and while we have very different tastes when it comes to what we enjoy watching we have found a few that we both really enjoy.

Looking Up

A lone bird on a telephone wire.

Married With Children - date idea #2

We love games. love.love.love them! I am always on the lookout for new 2 player games for us to play. From board games to card games to computer games to Wii games - we enjoy them all. We enjoy the competition and will usually play for a couple hours at a time.
We usually make a snack to go along with our game and if it's a board or card game we sit on our back porch to play.

We go through phases as to what our "go-to" game is, but some of our favorites have been:

Skipbo
Chess
Sudoko - we print them and race each other
Mastermind
Carcassonne
Wooly Bully
In a Pickle
Connect 4
Wii Sports
Mario Kart (Wii game)
Pool (from Yahoo games)
Poker (from Yahoo games)

What are your favorite 2 player games?

A Red Brick Building

My brother chose to spend 4 weeks of his summer vacation with us. We're at the halfway mark now and we just love having him here. He has given Paul and I the opportunity to go out and do things together and loves playing games like Settlers with us - which, sadly, we've played almost every evening he's been here.
The other day I took him exploring for cool picture taking places and we came across this old winery that is no longer in use. We had fun taking pictures around the building and then made it into the car just before it started raining!
These are some of my favorites:

Married With Children - date idea #1

Paul and I both enjoy being in the kitchen together and one of our frequent date nights is to cook a nice meal or snack together. We feed the boys and put them to bed a bit early, pour ourselves a glass of wine and then work on our meal together. It takes a bit of pre-planning as I try to have a lot of the meal prep done, but it is a relaxing and fun activity to do together and then we get to sit down and enjoy eating our meal together!

One of our favorite things to create is sandwiches and then grill them. We mix various seasonings with sour cream, use different meats and cheeses and put it all between two pieces of bread and put it in the George Foreman grill. Pizza is another fun thing to make together, as well as onion rings!

A New Skin Treatment - 2 yr old style

This boy loves a little bit of chip with his dip and when he was left alone for a few minutes he took advantage of the jar of yumminess and exfoliated his body and clothes with it.
We all had a good laugh and then dumped him, fully clothed, into the bathtub.

Lesson learned: never leave dip and children together unattended.

Giveaway

Head over to Lucky to be Blessed for a chance to win one of her adorable signs!! If one of YOU win then I win something too - so make sure to tell her you came from here!!
I am just loving her " (last name) Established (year you're married)" sign - ADORABLE!! I would love one of those for our home!

Married With Children

Before we had children we use to do all sorts of fun dates. One of my favorites was when Paul said he would pick the activity and I had to pick the location and pack a picnic lunch. I chose to go to a local park and had some cutesy picnic foods packed. Paul's surprise activity turned out to be sun catchers for us to paint together, so we sat in the park painting sun catchers together. It was so much fun and we kept the sun catchers around for a couple years.

Since our boys entered the world our dates outside the home became a lot less frequent, but we have attempted to maintain a weekly "date night" at home after they go to bed.
Spending intentional time together is so very important. I don't think I can emphasize that enough! It's not about getting dressed up for a fancy dinner at a local restaurant. Or about watching the newly released movie at the theater.
Keeping that element of fun alive in your marriage is important no matter where you're at in life, but for the next week or so I am going to share ideas and suggestions for date night if you are married with children.
Of course if you do not have children they are still ideas you can use, but the ideas are all things you can do from home during nap or after their bedtime.

I'd love it if you join in the comments with your own ideas!
Do you and your husband do date nights? How often? Do you do the dates at home or get someone to watch your children?

These flowers were in my friends garden. So pretty!

Pet For A Day

A couple weeks ago a friend brought over a puppy for an afternoon. Judah fell in love with the puppy and if puppies cleaned up after themselves and slept through the night I would totally get one for him! But as it is, puppies are a ton of work and I am not willing to put out the effort a puppy would require. So no pet for Judah!
The last few pictures just melt my heart!

Wesley couldn't stand the puppy and crawled away as fast as he could every time he saw the puppy. I think he felt his position as youngest/cutest/baby was being challenged.

30 Days of Littles Round up

I have been meaning to put this up for a while now - oops! Here is a quick reference to all the ideas of things to do with your littles throughout the day.



1. Keeping him busy with physical work.
2. Unloading the dishwasher.
3. Trying new spices.
4. Getting head massages.
5. Mail for the boys.
6. Playing with boxes.
7. Playing with toilet paper rolls.
8. You-tube
9. Where they eat messy food.
10. Singing songs.
11. Keeping myself sane.
12. Nap time.
13. Teaching them to do things themselves.
14. Keeping a simple schedule.
15. They eat what we eat.
16. Appreciating Paul's parenting style.
17. Appreciating Paul's parenting style pt 2 & exercise
18. Bedtime.
19. Intentionally playing with my kids.
20. Swimming diapers.
21. Guest Post - chore chart
22. Stay flexible - do what works.
23. Make learning fun.
24. Shooting guns.
25. Playing with gifts beforehand.
26. Seeing a child's love.
27. Burning energy outside.
28. Toys.
29. Cheer myself up.
30. Cherishing our children and showing them Christ.