friday

soccer.

do I look legit? I'm wearing a running shirt from a race I didn't even attend.  I've been so self conscious at the gym because I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm just hoping people don't look at me and also know that I have no idea what I'm doing.  it's weird because I normally feel so comfortable in my skin and this is just so out of my comfort zone.  so, I'm just trying to fake it till I make it.

Abigail cuddled up next to Andrew and asked me to take their picture.  how precious is this oldest/youngest shot?

later in the day, Brady did the same thing.  this isn't an uncommon occurrence.  I'm so glad Brady has a brother now.

as I texted lisa... it's like he fell asleep mid snow angel.

like father like son does not apply here.  honey and I were watching some impractical jokers while I folded sacrament programs... he melted into the sofa and then into the floor. honey is not a night owl.

Memorial Day weekend catchup

friday- I had my 36 week appointment with my actual doctor and it was my first time meeting with her this entire pregnancy.  she's the doctor that was on call when Brady was born and I saw her a couple of times during my pregnancy with Elizabeth.  honey stayed home from work to watch the kids while I went (at 11:10, it really wasn't a convenient time for any of us) and I know it was rough... he's so great for always attempting to work from home with our kids even though it just never ends well for him.  when I got back, I took the kids to the playground and we did quiet time, so hopefully they forgot a bit about their rough morning...

Saturday- I got a slow morning at home with Elizabeth while honey took Abigail and Brady to the BYU 5k that happens every year.  I've been once.  ha.  he pushed them in the double stroller and Brady did the little kids run after.  mostly I think they just loved that they got watermelon and cotton candy.

we actually took the kids to the pool that afternoon!  even though it was only in the high 50's and there was no pool party (I guess our HOA decided to just drop it because of the weather and not even open the pool) and the pool was closed and we actually had to semi break in.  but, honey got a few pizzas and we hung out at the pool with the Cottles while Abigail and the Cottle kids all swam.

when we got home, honey and the kids cleaned up our disaster of a house while I went to the church to print the sacrament program and make copies.  that's my new calling since I was pregnant enough that they released me from nursery.  I'm glad to have a calling that I will be able to fulfill with a newborn/husband in the bishopric.  my honey has been so amazing lately at cleaning up around the house and especially helping out in the kitchen loading and unloading the dishwasher.  so stupid but it makes such a huuuuuge difference to me.  I love it so much.

sunday- we celebrated Elizabeth's birthday!  my baby is two years old!  the morning was like any other.  sacrament meeting went really well.  and it was my first Sunday not going to nursery with Elizabeth so I just dropped her off and headed to Sunday school.  I was surprised how weird I felt in Sunday school and relief society considering I was only in nursery January through may.  Chris picked up Elizabeth and the nursery leaders said she was adorable.  when we got home, I took a few pictures of her on our front porch and she was hamming it up for the camera.

she really was in a fabulous mood for her birthday.  too bad we didn't even do anything to celebrate for it until after she woke up from nap!  we grilled hotdogs and hamburgers, opened presents (she got a small bouncy ball, all dogs go to heaven 2, sidewalk chalk, and then a little shirt and shorts outfit from the Kelsey grandparents), went on a walk around the block as a family (that's one of her favorites... just walking), and then had cake at home.  Chris made mini bundt cakes (thanks for the pan, mom!) and filled them extra big... when we flipped them upside down, they were like oversized cupcakes and the kids were all thrilled to each get their own even though Brady was the only one to finish his.

so, the day was a major success and I'm blown away that it's already been two years since we met our little baby Elizabeth.... I can't believe we're already about to have another one in a couple weeks!  while Christopher took the kids upstairs for bed while I dressed Elizabeth in her blessing dress and took her to the backyard to take a few birthday photos of her.  she wasn't in the most cooperative mood (mostly a little upset that I wouldn't let her wear shoes and she was walking around in our prickly backyard grass), but I sang Moana to her for the second half of it and I think I got a number of pretty good pictures... I'm excited to see them on a bigger screen.  maybe I'll get around to posting some on here!

monday- honey went golfing with friends in the morning and by noon we were all on our way to the rockies game.  honey is quite the baseball fan this season since the rockies are the second best team in the mlb right now!  ha, he's never been a baseball fan and I won't lie, it's been a lot of fun having him turn on the game after work in the evenings and just have it on in the background or having all of us sit down and watch it together as a family.  so, we got there before the game even started and stayed till it was over.

sadly, the rockies couldn't pull out the win and we lost by just a run.  it was great weather though.  sunny, then overcast, then raining for a bit, then sunny again, and then a bit overcast again.  perfection.  we played outside after we got home and then everyone got baths and showers and headed to bed.  I wondered/worried how we would celebrate without getting together with a bunch of family (I feel like I care about this stuff a bit more now that my kids are older and want to celebrate every holiday), but this was perfect.

Tuesday- I gloriously didn't roll out of bed till 9am.  ms. Stacy came over this morning and Abigail was soooo excited to finally meet her since she's been at school every other time.  the kids played outside a bit while I fed Elizabeth and we got to the library by 11:30 and stayed for almost two hours, as usual.  I have no idea how we stay so long every time and I'm still always dragging my kids away.  someday, I'm gonna have to just see how long my kids are content to stay if I never tell them we have to go.  we stopped by Best Buy on the way home to pick up my new laptop (I've hated my other one for the past two years, ever since I got it and honey has been begging me to just get a new one) and then I got the kids fed and down for quiet time (but not till 3 because there was a hiccup with the Best Buy pickup and it took longer than anticipated... my kids fortunately loved sitting in the comfy chairs and watching the 20 huge tvs with all sorts of fun stuff on them) and I got some downtime.  I require a lot of downtime these days... I blame pregnancy.  honey got home at 4:45 when Brady woke up so I declared quiet time over.  we all ate a bit and played outside until honey had to go to the church for a bishopric meeting.  so 7:00 started our little movie night of Alice in wonderland and whenever this is over, I'm gonna march these kids up to bed and declare this our first successful summer day!  maybe I will be able to survive a few months of Abigail out of school.  ; )

the inevitable

is life in fast forward?!  how is it already thursday?!  seriously i feel like just this morning i was comforting a crying abigail because she was sick and we had to stay home from church.  well, both kids are just as sick as ever (luckily it doesn't seem to bother either of them too much and brady is making up for it in sleep) but really... how does life move so fast?!  i'm being to wonder if i'm losing it.  i honestly feel like i am.

anyways, this morning we went to the library and met up with friends.  heaven forbid should our day not include hanging out with elle.  we returned this stack of books to the library because we're either bored of them, they're weird (obesity appreciation, girl with divorces parents celebrating seder, y'know), or it's actually a dvd and our dvd player is broken.   

well, i got online tonight to check our book count and realized i had A MILLION AND ONE things that were due on the 10th.  colossal fail.  seriously, i swear i JUST renewed everything.  so now i have almost $10 in fines i need to pay off.  which brings my library fines total for the past 2 years up to maybe $15.  not bad considering we've probably checked out thousands of books (the nerd in me wishes there was a way to track those stats... but mostly a way to keep track of a comprehensive list of the books and movies we've checked out) and really, this is just a nice opportunity to give back and donate a few bucks to the library, right?  even if we paid $15 a month, it would still be worth it.  although i love that that's not necessary.  this is a fine i'm happy to pay.  but really... did the last seven days actually happen?  i am so weirded out right now i'm having trouble finding words for it.  obviously.

brady was so excited to get this ball, he crawled right out of his pants.  that's what happens when skinny babies army crawl on their belly.  abigail never army crawled so i'm just kind of wondering how long it will be until he starts using his knees.  don't think i don't try to teach him correct posture.  it doesn't work though.  the second i touch him, he collapses in a fit of giggles.  most ticklish kid ever.

things for my calling have been so busy lately.  it's just "lds exhausted cont." all the time.  last week we had conference weekend... all ten hours of it.  monday was family night... i can't even remember what we did.  tuesday night christopher had a presidency meeting.  wednesday night christopher met us at a park for family pictures and then i stopped by home for two seconds to drop off kids before i went to my presidency meeting.  thursday night my honey was out of town so i dropped off my kids with a friend while i went to the church for stake auxiliary training and didn't get them in bed until after 10.  friday night i left the kids at home with my honey for a few hours while i went to the church for young women volleyball.  and saturday i found myself waking up at 6am and being gone from 7 - 2 for the youth temple walk.  i totally thought things would be so much easier once the temple walk was done on saturday but that's not quite the case yet.  

monday night i spent about four hours doing training.  tuesday i started planning for our ward halloween party and we had young womens at the church that night.  this morning was great because i took the kids to the library and the park and i was a great mom because abigail got to play a ton with elle and brady got to eat woodchips but then i dragged them around the dollar store for something like two hours (while abigail ran around like she was on crack and shattered a glass snow globe with glitter water all over the floor within five minutes of being there... although thankfully brady slept part of it and was in an exhausted coma zombie sort of state even when he was awake) while i scoped out prizes and did all sorts of math.  it is really a shame i could never get anything but straight C's.  raise your hand if you hate math!  alwaysandforever.

but happy day, if that isn't perfectly staying within a $50 budget then i don't know what is.  sadly, i got home and went through everything for the girl who i'll be turning this over to (don't you love when you get to hand over stuff like this?!) and realized that none of the whistles work.  so now i gotta go back tomorrow and convince the cashier to take those back and let me have something else (dollar store doesn't do returns so i'm interested to see how this will play out) and get that all organized before i drop it off at the girl's house.

we just hope this girl appreciates my over the top organizing skills of all of these prizes and the games they go to and who is running the games in which rooms and who will be bringing the games, and on and on.  just kidding... i know she's grateful.  i'm pretty much wrapping this neatly with a bow and placing it right in her lap.  she actually offered to make me baked goods to help return the favor.  i assured her i'm only doing it for the intrinsic value.

 

 

i always feel so heavy like i have such a weight... and this week, tonight especially, i feel like i am personally amputating my own arms, and both of my legs as well... the weight is lifting and i'm getting lighter but at what cost?  it's painful, a surreal, and life changing in a way i can't yet wrap my head around.

so, the next few days are doing to be awesome.  equal parts busy and awesome.

thursday- wrap up my part in this halloween party planning and go on a doubled date to the avs game!  the avs are one of two teams that are undefeated right now so let's all cross our fingers and toes that they pull of another win for us tomorrow night!

friday- not sure yet what fun the morning will hold, but that night i'm going to time out for women.  this is a first for me and i'm pretty excited!

saturday- time out for women until later in the afternoon.  hopefully we can do something fun together as a family that night... i cherish that time with just the four of us.

sunday- i've got byc but then i won't even get to be in our ward (three weeks in a row since it was general conference and then the kids being sick and now this...) because we'll be in my in law's ward for mark's homecoming talk!  i'm so excited for this.  of all my brothers in law, mark is the one that feels most like an actual brother to me.  he reminds me of my own brother, we have a sibling feeling relationship, and he even has the same birthday as my brother... i love him to death.  and ever since he got back from mexico, he speaks english with an accent and spanish voice intonations... just like walter did when he got back from his spanish speaking mission in san francisco.  anyways... all day hillier family fun.

and then it will be monday again... and i love mondays.  life moves fast.  i feel like i'm trying not to blink and yet somehow i'm still missing it!  just gotta soak it up as best i can.

ps- something else inevitable?  i finally had the opportunity to be THAT parent.  tonight while my honey and i were talking, abigail locked herself and brady in the upstairs bathroom.  try as i might, my efforts to describe to her how to unlock the door were not at all working and i didn't really want to send my christopher spidermanning on our roof in the pitch black, especially since i knew that window to our bathroom was locked.  so after a few minutes of abigail telling me the door was broken, i went got a wire hanger from the downstairs hall closet (tender mercy that i hadn't thrown them all away like i had previously wanted to) and worked it in the door handle.  miracle of miracles it actually worked and opened the door almost instantly!  i am still shocked... i've never been able to successfully break in like that... using a bobby pin might as well be an urban legend or something hollywood made up... and it actually worked!  i am so grateful for this and not really allowing myself to think of what would have happened if that didn't work.  what are you supposed to do when your three year old and your baby are locked in a room?  call an after hours lock smith?  just kidding... is that a job for the fire department?!  seriously... i'm so curious about this.  it's not like we could break down the door since brady was riiiiight there.  close call.  i'm one step closer to experiencing every parent horror story i've ever heard.

it turned out okay

this could also be called "lds exhausted: part 2"

i knew i had a number of things to get done today but didn't think it would be so rushed because... well, i had a whole day to do it and a husband that could watch the kids while i get everything done!  it didn't really happen like that.  the day started out normal enough but then by noon, christopher was gone to give someone a blessing.  went he got home, i started baking the sweet potatoes for my souffle and mowed the lawn and then jumped in the shower.  by 2:30, i was driving to the church to decorate our october/november table for the ward birthday party.  i was hoping it would be super quick but when i got there, we had two long rectangular tables instead of one single round table and the table cloth provided didn't reach the whole way and the stuff i'd brought to decorate weren't gonna work.  luckily, the main party planner brought a ton of her halloween/thanksgiving decorations that i could use but i was still up a creek with the table cloth issue.  i ended up scouring the relief society cabinets and found a cabinet full of awesome table cloths... not our ward.  thank goodness for lds tools and my friend, andrew, that helped me figure out how to look up directories of other wards in our stake.  i left a voicemail for that ward's rs president explaining the whole situation.  she called back but my phone was on silent.  then i called her back and she gave me the go ahead to help myself but please not get the nice ones stained with food.  ummm, so i helped myself to some middle of the road table cloths and even though it took 30 minutes to get that situation all figured out, it was still quicker than running to a store and back to the church... which i didn't have time for.  like literally not enough minutes.  i didn't get home from decorating til 4 and i still had to make my sweet potato souffle.  so i had an hour to make and bake that.  and feed abigail dinner, and feed brady and put him down for a nap, and clean our disaster of a kitchen/great room because christopher invited people over for the byu game, and i had to finish getting ready because when i went to set up the church, i had wet hair and no makeup (what does this say about me that i let myself go out like this all. the. time. because holy cow makeup is annoying and completely overrated), and really it was just a bit hectic with abigail wanting to help me cook (and almost knocking all of her teeth out on our counter tops when the chair she was standing on fell over) and brady non stop crying because he's having a rough couple of days and isn't in the mood for me to keep neglecting him.  and then our babysitter was 15 minutes late and [sigh] ugh.  see how there are no paragraphs?  that was my day.  my day was a serious case of the "no paragraphs" and it was bad news.

but y'know what?  my sweet potato souffle (i used double the sweet potatoes but followed the rest of the recipe exactly.  next time i will cut sugar in half) came together great and i pulled it out of the oven as we were leaving (late babysitter means it finished cooking earlier but i turned off the oven and let it stay warm in there) and so when we all sat down at the party to eat our food, it was still gloriously hot.  and it was awesome.  it was my first time making that recipe but paula deen never disappoints and this time she knocked it out of the park.  everyone was raving about it and how amazing it was and how it was perfectly hot still and on and on.  i'm totally a words of affirmation person and it made me feel so great to know i had done something to make people happy.  sometimes you perform acts of service and never really know if it was truly helpful for or appreciated by the recipient.  i like to know when it is.  and our october/november haunted thanksgiving table actually turned out looking pretty cute and everyone loved it which was a relief because if it sucked, i was the only person to blame.  and they had three categories to vote on and our table actually won one!  i didn't vote for our table and i don't think our table deserved to win but it was fun just the same.  and everyone sitting at our winning table got a candy bar so that was fun.  and they did a family feud game and it was awesome and hilarious.  the guy that played the game show host was absolutely perfect.  and he had a gigantic microphone that i think someone had to steal from a podium or something.  the girls i was sitting with were cracking up the whole time at the responses and really just everything.  one of our favorites was the question about what lehi took with him into the wilderness and "yes, liahona is up there.  doesn't matter that he didn't actually take that with him, all that matters is that 8 people said he did."  ha.  and even though i ate way too much and felt sick afterwards, it was soooo worth it.  our table had incredible food.  the october people brought homemade bread and salad, some sort of chili casserole with crescent rolls on top, hot dog crescent mummies, bottles of martinelli's that hung out in smoking dry ice and the november people brought rotisserie chicken, stuffing (it was the most amazing stuffing i've ever had in my life... golden raisins, apples, and apparently it was made with corn bread... i'll share the recipe here as soon as i get it), sweet potato souffle, and a chocolate silk cream pie.  ohmygoodness it was all so delicious.  i admit i had a kinda downer attitude about the event because getting people to rsvp is necessary (because of the potluck aspect) and about as easy as climbing kilimanjaro and i wasn't keen on the "pay for a babysitter for a date night where you'll sit at a different table than your husband."  but everyone mixed and mingled and chris ditched his group (their theme was duck dynasty... which has nothing to do with june but it was creative and i totally voted for them and they won a category too) to come sit near me while we watched the family feud game.

and the rest of the night was just fine.  boys watched the game, i put kids to bed and finished the personal progress board so it'll be ready for church tomorrow.  hallelujah.  it is shocking the amount of hours that go into something as simple as a poster board to track personal progress.  seriously hours and hours.  abigail didn't nap this afternoon (we're trying to phase her out... it's going ehhh) so she went to bed with zero resistance.  after we prayed, i thought maybe there was a chance i could hold her and she would just fall asleep on me (100% wishful thinking because that is soooo not her style) so i just stood by her crib and held her and told her to put her head down on my shoulder.  after a minute of that she put just looked at me and said "will you put me in my crib now?"  ha.  and then when i did she rolled right to her side and closed her eyes.  poor girl...  she really still needs a nap during the day but there's just not enough time to have a nap and enough awake time before bed.  transitions... they're all transient, right?  transient transitions.

who's pumped for sunday tomorrow?!

this girl right here.

tonight for bed, i encouraged abigail to pick a book we haven't read yet but she kept coming back to "tell me about your day today" and since we've only read it once and it was at least two weeks ago, i gave in.  well, it describes my day perfectly.  it's about a little boy who loves going to bed.  and when he's in bed, he asks each of his stuffed animals about their day and then lastly, they ask the boy about his day.  the recurring words for each day's explanation are "the who,/ the what,/ the why,/ and the way.../ the whole wild thing.../ turned out okay."

that was my day today.  and yesterday.  and the day before.  and really this whole week.  it's been super busy with just tons of random things and even the time i spend with my kids has been stressful because i'm thinking of everything else i need to be doing.  well, this entire week, and my crazy long to do list, all got done.  and the whole wild thing...

turned out okay.

lds exhausted

i. am. exhausted.

my day has been almost 100% devoted to my calling/church.  what on earth do non-lds people do with all their free time that isn't spent devoted to callings and such?!

from the minute i woke up, i was answering emails and calling and texting people to figure out the situation for yw volleyball tonight.  i'd only been awake 30 minutes and i'd already been in touch with my secretary, the ym president, all three of my class presidents, and my ward party co-host.  the rest of the day i was in touch with our yw personal progress adviser, the main ward party planner, multiple people in my party group to give them potluck food assignments, and multiple young women to ask about babysitting my kids during the ward party.  and our yw personal progress adviser came over for a few hours so we could work on our personal progress board and then i worked on it more after she left and then went to young women volleyball at the church from 6-7 and then to the grocery store to pick up ingredients i needed for my own pot luck dish and then got home just in time to put groceries away before we all headed over to my in laws to meet elder pieper of the seventy, who is in town right now.  and when we finally got home and got the kids to bed, it was 10:45 and i. was. beat.

all of this was worked around abigail who was doing pretty alright, and brady, who was far fussier than usual and by 5 i realized this severe migraine causing me to be nauseous and feeling like i was on the verge of throwing up... oh, maybe that was because all i'd eaten all day was a few bites of abigail's oatmeal sometime around 11 o'clock.  it was a true tender mercy that the blinding pain in my head completely vanished by the time i went to bed.  like i went from searing stabbing pain in my left temple and behind my left eye and needing to lay down because i felt like i was going to puke at 6 to feeling almost normal at 8 and then literally no pain at all by 11.  it was a literal miracle.  i can't take excedrin or anything because i'm nursing and typically my headaches last for days at a time.  and migraines that bad may subside some but stick around in just a "really bad headache" status for at least another 24 hours.  i don't recall a recovery this fast... ever.  and i get headaches so often, i recently had a friend suggest that i get an mri or something.  i always say i'm going to be better about recognizing and recording miracles in my life.  well, this one blew me away, and even though i don't anticipate forgetting something this big... at least not anytime soon... i'm recording it.

today made me giddy

today was a simple day... but i got to the end of it and felt butterflies in my stomach and just excited about life.  why?  i couldn't figure it out for a while but then realized it was because my day was just great.

here are a few wonderful things about my day:
both kids, and myself, not waking up until 10am.  brady isn't feeling well and had a rough night.
abigail ate all of her breakfast.  and we all ate together.  like the dollhouse family.
we got out of the house by noon... with no yelling.
brady and abigail were so well behaved at walmart and brady slept for the majority of the trip.
abigail didn't whine about lunch... and ate a TON.  plus some.  and then finished off our entire tupperware of cantaloupe.
both kids went down for nap easily and their nap time overlapped for over two hours.
i was able to make dinner in peace... delicious toasted almond chicken.  and even eat dinner with honey in peace.
because honey got home before 5:30!!!
abigail took her three year old stubbornness down a few notches.  no fights today about going potty!
that girl says the darnedest things.  and loves to pray alllll by herself.
my christopher did four days of dishes and occupied the kids and fed abigail (a whooooole ton of food) in the kitchen while i took a long phone call for my calling and prepared a family home evening lesson on faith and prayer (passed off a personal progress goal with that one!)
we had so much fun as family... just talking and hanging out.  in the kitchen, in brady's room, just totally hit the spot.
both kids went to bed at the same time... again, without a problem.
i actually got to hang out in bed with my honey for a while before he fell asleep!  that neverrrr happens.
i worked on personal progress (i'm kind of obsessed right now) and read scriptures and journaled for a long time after we turned out the lights.
i'm blogging!  the day of!  this is why i blog.  to preserve these moments.  i love my life.

out all day

saturday morning was pretty funny because all i could think about was getting out of the house to run all the errands i had on my mind.  and after a crazy rough week at work, all honey could think of was a lazy day relaxing at home.  we compromised and hung out together in the morning (although i was still running around the house getting things done) and in the afternoon, i took brady to run errands, while abigail and christopher stayed home to play and have nap time.  and then we all went out for a family date.  a perfect compromise.

honey made us french toast for breakfast.  i think he was going to bring it to me in bed but brady woke up so my honey delivered breakfast in brady's room while i got him up for the day.  french toast is super sweet but not filling so i made myself oatmeal.  as i was eating it, i got a text from my friend sawah asking me about oatmeal!  beat you to it sawah!

check it out!  another train!

my mother in law gave me a cricut for christmas... like four years ago.  this was the first time i've used it.  i had to get myself acquainted with it a bit... just trying things out to prep for our yw activity tuesday.

leaving to run errands.  i had to drop off a baby gift, drop off something to my RS pres, and make returns to target, costco, and ross.  so cleansing getting all of this out of my house!

we were gone for a million hours.  he slept for about 30 seconds in the costco parking lot (while i was finding a spot... and then woke up when i got him out of the car) and 20 minutes at ross.  that's a whole lot of awake with a cranky baby.  but he's still just so sweet when he's asleep.

family date.  we go here often because we have discounts... and every time we go, we joke about being on a documentary about fat americans that overeat unhealthy food.  because what else should you talk about while you stuff your face with tons of rolls with honey butter, fried cactus blossom, steaks, fries, and a sweet potato covered in butter, sugar, and marshmallows?!  i stuff myself til i literally feel sick to my stomach and then walk out of there with terrible feelings of gluttony and self disdain.  yet, what i would give for a roll and honey butter right now...

and then we rounded out the night with a trip to petsmart.  our favorite was the tank of spastic fish that scatter when you hold your hand up to the glass.  abigail thought it was so cool she could control them (although she was confused why it didn't work when she tried it with a different tank of fish) and my honey kept making jokes about being harry potter and having a fish act on america's got talent.

fake food and diy potpourri

thursday night i left my honey at home with the kids so i could go to a presidency meeting at my secretary's house.  my christopher is always so willing to watch our kids when i have things going on.  thursday night he was just slightly less than happy about it though because he'd woken up at 5am (as usual but it's still exhausting) and had had a super extremely rough day at work.  my meeting was at 8 and brady woke up at 8:30 (timing with his naps has been tricky with dropping the swaddle... i swear we'll eventually get back on schedule) and was wide awake.  all of this is really not relevant... why do i always share so many details?  anyways, towards the end of the meeting, he was texting me and anxious for me to get home so he could go to sleep.  i told him we were allllmost done.  then i told him i was just leaving.  but i stayed a little longer talking with my friend.  so then, as i was walking to the car, i told him i was just leaving again.  

i clicked to unlock the car, climbed in, grabbed the keys from my lap, and... couldn't find the car key to start the car!  i had driven my christopher's car and he had recently taken his key off my keychain and put it on again.  sooo he must have put it on a loose link because it came off.  well, it was pitch black and i spent a good while using my cell phone light to try to find this key.  i knew christopher was getting impatient for me to be home and that brady needed to eat and was probably getting fussy and tired.  but ohmygoodnesswherewasthatkey?!  then i got an obviously annoyed text from my honey "let me guess... you're just leaving again?"  ha.  i guess i'd cried wolf too many times.  so i told him i was looking for the key and would be back asap.  eventually i got desperate enough to call kylee and tell her i was still parked in front of her house and i needed a flashlight.  she brought out a huge flashlight and we laughed as we searched every inch of my purse and the car.  one of her first comments was "wow!  your car is so clean!"  so i had to tell her, actually, it's because it's not my car and our kids never ride in it.  three minutes later, kylee pulls a dried orange out from under the passenger's seat.  so much for that "clean car."

she put the orange in the cup holder (i think?) and we laughed some more trying to guess how old it was.  eventually i found the key (lodged down between the driver's seat and the console) and texted chris that i was on my way home.  he responded and told me that his mood had deteriorated fast in the last hour and that when i got home, i should probably just let him be.  i really love those warning texts because it completely avoids so many situations where i would get offended about something that didn't concern me, just because christopher was having a bad day.  so when i got home, he handed me brady and went to bed.  

today he had another crazy horrible day at work but sucked it up and put on a good face when he got home.  he wasn't home more than two minutes before he said "you put fake food in my car?!" and handed me the petrified orange.  

i laughed out loud telling him the story from the night before.  it literally looks exactly like the potpourri my mom has in a basket in her kitchen.  this naval orange has shriveled down to the size of a clementine and is as light as air.  

 

i think the last time i bought these oranges was the beginning of june.  so here's my three step do it yourself recipe for homemade potpourri:

1. send your husband to work with an orange for a quick and healthy snack

2. have him forget it under the seat of his car

3. retrieve it three-ish months later and put it in a decorative basket

made my day.

a productive thursday

pictures

i was awake for over 2.5 hours.  woke up before three, heard christopher wake up at 5:11 (his body refuses to sleep any later than that) fell asleep sometime around 5:30 i think, heard christopher's alarm, heard him shower and get ready, woke up with brady at 6:30, and woke up for the day with abigail at 9:15.

i have a 16 gig memory card in my big camera.  i never delete pictures off of it and we've had it since abigail was a month old.  i took this picture and saw what i'd never seen before "card is full."  i'll admit... i wondered if this day would ever come.  almost 14 thousand pictures is a lot for one card.

this was the previous picture.

brady is afraid of the ball pit.

went ballistic (no pun... is that a pun? what is that?  intended) and wouldn't put his arms down.  meanwhile abigail is saying "cheeeeeese."  

 

 

i love putting him down, leaving to do something for a few minutes, and then coming back to the surprise of "where is brady now?!"  seriously, not sure why i find this so entertaining but i totally do.

 today was day two in a row of not leaving my house (with my kids) and it was great.  they do really well when we're out but it always means that the rest of our day is going to be rough.  abigail acts out like crazy after we get home from a morning out and brady's naps are off.  and somehow it makes our kitchen messy.  like random objects from my purse all over the island?  no clue what that's about.  anyways today and yesterday were great.  we played in the playroom and doll house, abigail and i have logged hours of reading her stacks of library books, brady has been so happy, i haven't worn makeup in three days, and we've all been a little less stressed and rushed about life.  

tonight we had an amazingly productive presidency meeting tonight and, as always, i had a generous to do list for myself by the time i went home.  i'm in such a productive mood tonight (i deep cleaned my kitchen and even mopped my entry way and bathroom!  and the best part was that abigail was my perfect hanging out buddy just sitting on the kitchen chair to stay out of the way while she chattered and told me stories) that when i got home, i put brady to bed and tackled every action item on that list (except for the two that require a phone call that will need to be during daylight hours) and so tomorrow i can just worry about following up with people on all of the emails i sent out.  great news since we're hopefully going to the splash pad tomorrow.  crossing my fingers our outing out is as enjoyable as our days in.  i tell myself that abigail will appreciate these things.  today, she randomly told me sorry for something she had done thirty minutes earlier.  tonight while i was mopping, she was eating her [nasty, plain] greek yogurt while i was mopping and she said "thank you for painting my fingernails and my toes."  she has a good heart.  it made my day.