New Years Goals...A little late.

I am so thankful that I have a husband who is goal oriented. Even if he doesn't bring up our goal making at the most inopportune times;-) aka...2 seconds after loading up for an 8 hour trip with two fussy kids. Still for the most part, we go over our life, year, week goals nearly every Sunday. It's fun to check things off and to keep goals at the front of our minds.

So I'm not one much for New Years Resolutions but I thought I'd do it anyways...since it's, you know, almost the 8th!;-)

1.Keep my boys alive and healthy.

aka don't leave Barclay alone in the room with Sullivan in case rage over takes him and he either

a. chokes

b.pushes

c.kicks.

d.pinches

e.a lot of other mean things that make me sad:-(

2.Become hot

-either get pregnant so that this belly of mine is actually sexy;-)

-or get to the point that clothes look decent on me...and I'd like to wear boots next fall

3.Cook more so we don't eat out (for financial reasons and for MENTAL reasons. Because eating out with Barclay George is never really the setting for enjoying food or friends)

-meal plan

-meal plan yummy food (post coming soon about this!)

4.Be patient

-I am starting to get to the point after hard days where I literally scare myself with how impatient and frustrated I get. I do NOT want my boys to be scared of me.

5.Make exercising a priority.

-basically it is my last priority after:

a.feeding my family

b.keeping them alive

c.bathing

d.doing facebook

e.doing pinterest

f.grocery shopping

g.cleaning.

h.hanging out with friends

i.watching TV

j.editing photos

k.driving

l.getting dressed

m.washing clothes

n.drinking coffee

o.eating

p.having random dance parties with my boys

q.finding good deals on craigslist

r.painting or creating art

s.reading

t.texting

u.bathing for fun

v.changing diapers

w.going to church

x.taking care of my dad

y.nursing

z.blogging

and I'm out of letters...

The only things that come UNDER exercising is

-brushing my hair

So basically I can always find an excuse not to! I am good at exercising. I'm decently in shape. But I'm just not used to making it something important in my life and I want that to change. I want to have the guts to tell someone, "Actually, as much as I'd love to meet you for impromptu coffee, I need to get some exercise. Want to walk with me?"

So those are just a few of my new years goals. What are yours?

My day

It's been a :
Wake up tired
Take your son to school in your pjs
Find your baby eating his poop
Sweep 4 times and there's still crumbs
Wash your children and they are dirty 10 mins later
Eat chocolate for meals
Give your toddler peanutbutter on a spoon for dinner
Never change clothes just pj bottoms
Never look in the mirror cause you are scared
Constant babies crying
No nap
Constant discipline
Ask your husband to bring home takeout
Kind of day.

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DIY Advent Calendar

As a child we had a paper advent calendar where we would open the "door" each day and there was a fun activity to do! That was my favorite thing about Christmas.

I wanted to either make or buy a cute advent calendar that Barclay could do this Christmas since he is pretty aware and this might be his first memory of Christmas.

Never got around to it. It is December 1st today so I decided to just write out a fun activity on a piece of paper and put it in a little advent church I got at Target a few years back for $2. By next year maybe I can incorporate these activities into a cute calendar that will last. But for this year it's torn up paper!

I thought I'd share in case anyone else was in the same pickle:-)

I tried to make it a mix of learning about the real reason for Christmas, giving to other people, having fun, making things and enjoying family.

December 1-Put up the nativity and read the Christmas Story

2-Have a 10 minute dance party to Christmas music

3-Make Snowflake Cookies (I have a snow flake cookie cutter)

4-Take Christmas Pictures!

5-Take a meal to someone with a new baby (tie it into the Christmas story and Mary)

6-Make a Christmas tree ornament

7-Make cookies and give to neighbors

8-Go to goodwill and find a Christmas book

9-Watch Charlie Brown's Christmas, snuggle and eat popcorn!

10-Wear your Pj's, get a milk shake, get in the car and see all the Christmas lights around town! (This originated as a way to make my mom not so sad on her anniversary with my dad).

11-Go see ginger bread houses at the Grove Park (a huge Inn here with a national gingerbread competition).

12-Make cookies for people who help us (ie mailman, trash pick up people, etc)

13-Make orange and clove hanging balls. (stick cloves into oranges in patterns and hang for smell)

14-Watch Frosty the snowman and drink hot coco

15-Take cans of food to homeless shelter.

16-Watch Rudolph and eat ice cream

17-Give money to a child in another country who needs it.

18-Send great granddaddy a letter (this is because my Grandmother's birthday was today)

19-Bring good cheer to a nursing home! (probably the one my dad's at)

20-Give 5 toys away to children that need them (aka goodwill)

21-Go to goodwill to buy presents for family (let him totally pick them out and pay)

22-Wrap presents

23-Go to Jojo's house and make Aunt Lucy's Christmas Cookies!

24-Go to Nana's house to open presents. Read the Night before Christmas.

25-Read the Christmas Story. Sing Happy Birthday to Jesus!

Breather

Today is my first day in like a month where I am sitting here and realizing that I don't have anything scheduled today. It has been non.stop. We went from a whirl wind season of fall photography (I did 6 photoshoots in a week!), to a ton of doctors appointments and finding out about Sullivan having some pressurizing problems in his ears, to having last minute surgery, to flying to CA with two babies and all the non-stop-ness that comes with that (multiplied with time change...yikes) to back to photoshoots and sickness. A whirl wind trip to Savannah to cheer on my friend Melanie in her first Marathon! To a wedding, and then my dad (who I am totally responsible for now) having total hip replacement surgery....and all the long hours preparing for and after entails. To more photoshoots and editing. And on top of all that a LOT of drama with my sister and her husband. All multiplied with the most temperamental toddler and a fussy 9 month old who wakes up several times a night. It's all a lot. A lot. And there hasn't been a moment to sit back and cry.

Sometimes when people complain about being busy or stressed out I just want to laugh.

I do want it to slow down and I want to be able to give more to my family and friends than my distracted stressed out half brained attention.

I went to baby shower for a friend from college this past Saturday and I came home and Noah asked me how everyone was and I couldn't tell him one thing. I was so out of it!

Things are looking up. I have committed to start cutting back on photoshoots in December. We hired someone to clean our house once a week ( a MAJOR MAJOR humbling experience for me). That has significantly decreased marital tension and it has helped me SO much to keep up. The holidays are around the corner and I am SO thrilled to be able to spend it with my family.

I feel like there are seasons of my life where it is non stop, one thing after the other, people think I'm lying it's so crazy. Glad to be leaving that season and on to one with boundaries and taking it slower.

All my blogs in one

I've written 1/2 of a zillion blog posts and they all sort of look like this:

Im tired
I love my children
I adore my children
My children cry all the time and drive me crazy
I am crazy
Will I ever sleep?
Why does everything I do feel like trudging through mud
I'm tired
I wanna kill almost everyone I come in contact with because they sleep...including mom's of brand new babies
Why do my children hate sleeping?
I eat a lot
I want to eat more
I am freaking tired!

The end

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Dear Sullivan

Dear Sullivan,

I think I've fallen in love with you a thousand times over this past month. I do NOT think you can be any more delightful! It finally clicked with you yesterday and you are crawling everywhere. You crawl like a drunken sailor though! Very wobbly!

I have spent hours every single day (and night) just gazing at you and I do believe I kiss you more than a thousand times a day. You are so soft and so chubby and I can't help it!

You adore your big brother. ADORE him! You will just sit and watch him like he's the best thing since sliced bread! You laugh at him all the time. I'll just be driving and you two are giggling away in the back seat and I have no idea what about!

You smile with your whole body, just like I do. You have two cute little teeth now and they make you cuter!!!

Honestly, I can't imagine my life without you. You are such a precious joy in my life.

Sigh.

I cannot stop thinking about you and I'm tempted to lean over your crib and just kiss your face all over...but that would be silly!

I cannot wait to watch as you grow into the man God made you to be. I pray you are as gentle and loving as I can already see you are now.

Please never stop letting me kiss you!

Your "love-is-bursting-out-of-my-heart-mama"

Tidbits from CA

In theory, I want to do a long, blog post for every day of our trip to CA. But in reality, I know that will never happen! So I've decided to update random memories and snippets of our adventures on this blog post. It'll be out of order and probably grammatically incorrect, but it'll save me from blowing up Facebook with a hundred statuses AND I'll have a record of it to keep forever. So check back for updates, I'm sure it'll be amusing;)

*everyone on the plane hated us before we even took off, and we did NOT disappoint. The entire 6 hours, someone was either crying, screaming, whining, or kicking the seat in front of us. The five mins of silence we had,both boys pooped. No joke. It was helacious. What made it worse was the stares. People were acting like we were being rude! Not one blessed min of that trip was spent NOT trying to calm the babies down. I mean, you cannot leave...what did they expect us to do? It was magnified by how utterly exhausted we were. I slept 2 hours (not in a row) Monday night because Sullivan had unexpected ear tube surgery early Tuesday morning. I slept less than that Tuesday night due to packing and finishing up editing photoshoots.

*I grabbed the guy sitting behind me on the plane's sock foot when I was on the hunt for a lost toy car. That did not help out our " cheer up the grumpy people" cause.

*no matter how hard I try to be organized, pack simply and smartly, and dress my family adorably...we are nothing but a chaotic hurricane of mess. We will never be "those people" who look effortlessly put together.

* despite the chaos, I am so thankful that Noah and I have continued traveling and exploring with our children. Well maybe not in the moment when we have to leave a delicious local meal with doggie bags to eat in the hotel because of multiple breakdowns. But in the long run, I don't think we will ever look back on this time and regret not putting our adventures on hold for the first 10 years of childrearing.

*at the beginning of our trip yesterday my bra broke and the underwire was sticking me. It chose to pop completely out of my shirt in a crowded train. What did I do when I found myself stand in a crowded train holding an underwire? I casually handed it to Sullivan to teeth on.

*I despise eating fast food. I find I can completely avoid it, even in situations most people would just give in. On road trips, I usually call ahead to a town ahead of us and order something and pick it up as we pass through the town. Usually it ends up being about the same or less money too. When we arrived in San Fran, we were all starving but I was not about to let our first meal in CA be fast food. So we drove to down town, I hopped out at a hole in the wall Falaful place while Noah did block laps with our conked out boys. We enjoyed a delicious kebab sandwich with spicy cabbage as we drove around the city in blissful silence. And it was less money, lots tastier and we didn't clog our arteries;)

*in an effort to keep Barclay from kicking the seat in front of us in the plane, for the thousandth time, I braced myself and pulled him back...and ended up jamming my toe onto the metal chair base. I didn't scream bloody murder like I usually do when in pain because I was so scared they would throw us out the emergency exit! I ended up nearly ripping my nail off and gashing my toe. it bled everywhere. positive thing to the situation was that we got band aides and they entertained Barclay for 10 mins.

* Noah and I are exact opposites in every way...except how we travel. We always fall in love-again when we travel. We love just being places. We normally don't make a lot of touristy stops. We love to sit at cafes and watch the locals. We love to have a fluid schedule. We love taking every opportunity to eat something yummy :) I think it's one reason we do it so much:)

* I know it's weird but I have an obsession with pretending I'm a Native American Indian. I love to think back to times when all their was the land. We are driving the Pacific coast hwy from San Fran to Templeton, where we are going to a wedding on Friday. The pacific coast is wild and rugged and very uninhabited. I can close my eyes and suddenly I am an Indian girl standing on the jagged cliff overlooking the ocean. Because as much as everything in the world has changed, the ocean has looked the same since the beginning.


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