Tonight I made your Daddy help me blow up 72 balloons so I could fill your room with them while you slept. He laughed at me but I would not be dissuaded. I suppose there is only a 50% chance that you will stay asleep all night and not ruin your wake-up surprise but my intentions are good regardless.

Tonight, I tucked in a two year-old and tomorrow morning I will pluck up a three year-old. As the cliche goes I can’t believe another year has flown by. I sat down tonight to look back at pictures from the last year and realized that pictures alone will never do you justice. You are far too much to be confined to a flat image on paper.

Everyday you wear your little heart on your sleeve, your emotions and feelings are never kept secret. When you’re happy you giggle like a maniac and when you’re upset it’s almost as though you’re certain the world is ending. You’re never shy with kisses although you continue to view hugging as a passive activity. Somewhere along the line you got the impression that “giving hugs” means you simply lean into the person and allow yourself to be hugged.

Your tantrums rarely fail to impress, even the short pitiful ones have a rousing spark. When you feel you’ve been unjustly reprimanded you stomp, but only with one foot. STOMPstepSTOMPstep, you march yourself over to the stairs and climb to the time-out landing. Sometimes the tears start before you ever get there, sometimes you just sit there stone-faced and give me (or your sister) the dirty eye. It’s usually best if I’m not within eye sight because sometimes it’s hard to keep a straight face.

Your sister continues to be your favorite person, your biggest fan, and your most worthy opponent. Her need to be involved in what you’re doing, especially when you’re playing the iPad, is a constant source of frustration. Yet, whenever she is away, even for just a nap, you constantly ask me where she is. Whenever she cries you pat her head and say, “s’okay Sissy, s’okay”. I hope that never changes, I hope you’ll always be each others’ protectors.

Even though I’m quite certain that “three” is going to test every bit of patience that I have a small part of me wishes I could freeze time right now and keep you just the way you are. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all if you woke up in the middle of the night and wanted a snuggle. I’ll take as many as you’ll give me. All day, every day.

Love Mama

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Katelyn is not in fact in the basket, although if Chase could find a way to hold her down and stuff her in there I’m sure he would try.

That shiny filthy, sporty black SUV back there is also my baby. A Toyota Rav-4 sport edition, aluminum alloy (what?) wheels, 6 disc CD changer, MP3 capability, really awesome sound system, lots of other nifty bells and whistles.

It’s the first car that I owned by myself. My mom still went with me when I picked it out but my name, and my name alone went on the papers. That car drove me to the first day at a new job. It drove me to my wedding and home to my husband. It drove me to the bank to sign papers when we bought our first house. That car drove both of my babies home from the hospital. For the 14 months that my family was living apart it drove me and my babies across state lines more times than I can count. It carried not only us but some of our belongings to our new home here.

The inside of that car holds a crayon stain on the backseat from a purple crayon left out on a hot day. There are goldfish crackers and fruit snacks abandoned under the back seat in places I can’t reach. The spilled milk and baby throw up stains are gone but I know exactly where they were. The trunk is littered with scuff marks from strollers and suitcases. I quiver to think about the sucker residue from those unfortunate times when my kids demanded a Dum Dum.

As much as I love my little SUV our time together is drawing to a close. Our little family needs a not so little car. I have hopes of having another baby at some point in the future and considering my kids can hold hands from their car seats, I don’t think we could squeeze in another. And let’s face it, car trips of any length will be much more enjoyable if our kids can’t reach each other and each others’ things.

My Rav-4 is the fourth Toyota I’ve had, my mom and I have both driven a Toyota for as long as I can remember. We’ve even purchased them all from the same dealership. This time around I had all but decided that another Toyota wasn’t in my future. I just wasn’t sure we could afford the larger Toyota SUVs. Just as we were ready to start the arduous task of car shopping (seriously is there anything more obnoxious than overly eager car salesmen?) I got an invitation from the Clever Girls. They invited me to be a part of their Toyota Women’s Influencer Network (TWIN).

Sadly they won’t be giving me a new car (I know right?), but I will be spending the next few months learning more about their overall brand and sharing my opinions with them. In their words…

TWIN is a cool new advocate discussion group focused on cars, car shopping, driving, and the Toyota brand.

Toyota has been part of many major milestones in our lives, from our first family road trips, to getting our driver’s license, to buying our first car. Toyota wants to hear about your experiences, learn from your history, and know what you think about their brand. And their cup holders. And their interiors. And what’s under the hood. And technology. And going green, saving money, family fun, vacations… pretty much everything about cars, car shopping, driving and what’s important to you.

 I feel incredibly lucky to be working with a brand that has been such a huge part of my life. I hope you’ll stick around for the next couple of months so I can share with you the things I learn and of course share your opinions with me so I can pass them along to Toyota.

Now. Who wants to come be my personal car shopper?

Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of Toyota.

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I literally dread going to well-check visits with my kids because I always feel awful afterwards. At our old office we would go back to the exam room and the nurse would pull out her little laptop and start firing questions at me. “Does Chase do this, does Chase do that”. It seemed like all they wanted was a yes or no but that didn’t stop me from trying to expand on every answer. We went for a well-check to get established with our new pediatrician a couple of weeks ago and when I checked in with the receptionist she handed me a form to fill out. I was expecting the normal insurance and/or medical history type form but instead I got a written version of the “Does Chase do this or that” exam.

Let me just tell you that when you’re filling out the form in the waiting room, the parent sitting beside you doesn’t want to here you expanded answers any more than the nurses do.

I panicked a little bit and decided then and there that Chase and I were going to start a form of toddler boot camp. I was going to start working really hard to catch him up. We were going to start eating better, learning to dress ourselves, communicating in 3 word sentences, and use the potty.

Boot camp lasted two days, more like a day and a half. We were both miserable.

I know that I have to stop judging Chase based on other kids his age but good god damn, it would help tremendously if everyone else would stop too. Just once I want an “expert” to say to me “he’ll do it when he’s ready and that’s ok”. I want to just sit back and enjoy him being a baby a little longer. I don’t need him to be able to get dressed by himself at 3 years old. I don’t care if he wears diapers for 6 more months, even a year. He says “I wuv you mommy” and I don’t need any other sentences.

Soon enough he’ll be grown and I’ll say stupid things like “where did my little boy go”. So I’m going to try to enjoy my little boy while he’s still little.

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First things first, I promised you a floor plan drawing and here it is. DO NOT JUDGE. I am not an architect and this was very hastily drawn. Then it was copied over, even more hastily, in a sharpie because holy-mother-of-god-my-scanner-hates-pencil-drawings.

Anyway.

The downstairs

The upstairs

This is our entryway

It’s pretty standard as far as entryways go. The built in coat rack is pretty nice, I guess. We added a little cabinet to hold odd and ends and a dorm fridge to keep our drinks in. I can’t understand how people function without a drink fridge. If we had to keep our supply of Gatorade, soda, and beer in our regular fridge there would be no room for food stuffs. None. Someday I’d like to refinish that ugly cabinet and paint the little fridge a darker color but for now it is what it is. The hallway that you see is a right turn from the entry way, the first door is our half bath and the open doorway is the kid’s toy room.

This is the half bathroom

It is…ORANGE. Very, very orange. It’s also got a faux finish of some sort, maybe rag painting, I don’t really know. At any rate we weren’t given permission to paint over it, so orange it is. I’m hoping to get a large, dark espresso shelf to put in the corner, kind of like this one. I’m finding that the dark brown accents in the room make the orange tolerable, it might even be growing on me.

This is the kids’ toy room

This is probably the room that I’m the most excited about. Someday when we build a house it will absolutely have a separate room for my kids’ stuff. Chase’s birthday is coming up and we’re going to get him a play table and chairs to put in here. Eventually I’d like to get some more kid friendly storage but for now it works as is. Lest you think my children are as obsessively organized as I am, here is a more realistic view of the toy room.

 This is the living room and dining room

I’m realizing now that I didn’t exactly get the best pictures but you get the idea right? The room is a little narrow so unfortunately our leather recliner is in storage right now. I think we’re going to put it in Chase’s bedroom so he has a chair that we can sit in and read before bed. I was going to skip an area rug in the living room because they’re expensive and basically just crumb catchers with my kids around but our couch just will NOT stay together on the slick hard wood floors. The clips that hold the end section and ottoman together are really weak, so hopefully a nice big rug will keep it from sliding so much. The little blue wood stove would be awesome in the winter, if it worked. My FIL checked it out when we moved in but, contrary to the landlord’s insistence, it’s just not safe to burn stuff in because of the worn down interior. If we could take it out I’d totally put my desk in that little nook, but alas, it’s not our house.

This is the kitchen (aka Battlefield Ants!)

I’m not sure if you noticed right away or not, it took me awhile to, but there are no upper cabinets. None. Not one single upper cabinet. That’s been my biggest challenge with this kitchen so far. Luckily we have the big walk through pantry for overflow storage. I’m still not convinced that I like the open shelving but it’s definitely growing on me. I’d love to get a cabinet to put in the little nook next to my desk to act as a food pantry because we have a horrible time with ants around the counters. It’s hard to see in the picture but right next to the sink is a dish drainer, that’s right, we don’t have a dishwasher anymore. Oddly enough, I don’t really miss it yet. The part that bothers me is not having a good system for keeping our scrub brushes and sponges organized.

This is the basement

Obviously the basement is unfinished and being used mostly for storage. Right now it’s a complete disaster because I still have a lot of our decorative stuff down there waiting to either find a home upstairs or be packed back away. The stairway going down only has a few pieces of drywall so we’ve made use of the room between the studs for storing a lot of our cleaning supplies. As you walk through the door there is a little space to the right where I’ve hung up an over door clear pocket organizer, it’s actually working really well there. The nice part about having our laundry in the basement is I can really spread my stuff out and not have to worry about anyone seeing my mess. I only iron about once every two weeks but I’m able to keep my board open and set up along with a table for folding. The drawback to a basement laundry room is when you’re awakened at 3 AM by a toddler puke fest and you have to haul ALL THE BEDDING all the way to the cold dark scary basement. OH, and do you see the wooden stairs beside the washer/dryer? Those go out the Dorothy door. All I can think about every time I walk past is the scene in Twister where Jodi Foster’s father is sucked out a Dorothy door into a tornado. Awesome.

So there you have it. That’s our little rented house in the country. I’ll put up some pictures of the outside later. We actually have a pretty big chunk of land here with a pond and everything.

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The first time we came to look at this house, oh lord, in my head I was putting my foot down. There was absolutely no way I was going to bring my belongings into this house and actually live here. Needless to say it’s grown on me. It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint, a little scrubbing, and all your things will do to a space. Oh, and there’s that other little thing about having all four members of our family under one roof. That’s pretty amazing too.

I really wish that I had taken before photos, especially of the upstairs. We’ve made some pretty amazing strides with it in a little over a month. This house is…well…it’s unique. There are some super wonderful features like hardwood floors throughout, plenty of closet space, lots of windows, and awesome water filtration (trust me that’s important when you have a well). There are also some weird things like different colored woodwork, one really orange bathroom, a slightly weird floor plan, and a startling lack of trim.

Before I get to the pictures there are just a few things to note:

1. I’m only showing you the upstairs today. Several reasons; this post would go on forever if not, I have a short attention span, and I still need to take more pictures of the downstairs and outside.
2. The pictures are not exactly high quality because I took them with my old point and shoot. My DSL only has a 50mm lens and I just couldn’t get a wide enough shot with it. I really miss my broke ass 18-55 kit lens this week.
3. I’m pretty sure I had a third note but I can’t remember what it was. I’m going to have to start carrying a voice recorder.

Moving on…

This is Kate’s room

Originally I planned on her walls being a little darker with more of a grey base. I was trying to achieve a look that was little girl feminine without being GIRLY GIRL. I think it’s getting there. I just need to work on some actual wall decor.

This is Chase’s room

Originally I intended for there to be no toys in the kids’ bedrooms. I thought it would be easier to transition them to toddler beds if their rooms weren’t a place to play. You can see how well that’s worked out for me. Maybe I’ll just make them sleep in their cribs forever. Eventually his room is going to need a full size dresser, if for no other reason than to get the TV out of reach. Katelyn loves to push the buttons.

This is our bedroom

It’s a little ridiculous right? It’s the least “finished” of all the rooms in our house besides the basement. Funny story about the furniture. The two black towers on either side of the one dresser are actually the end pieces to our entertainment center. I think they only lived as a part of the entertainment center for a few months before we impulsively bought a TV that’s a few inches wider than the TV stand. Since then they’ve basically lived as glorified bookcases/shelves. I think they look pretty nice on either side of our dresser. We also really need a bigger TV, that thing is just pathetic. I’m still trying to decide if the furniture is in the right place, then I’ll work on prettying up the walls. Promise. I guess you could say we have a walk-through closet. It’s an awkward hallway type space that has become one of my favorite parts of this crazy house. I actually kind of love that none of our closets have doors, I’m weird like that.

This is the upstairs (and only full) bathroom

It’s kind of hard to tell but this is actually two rooms. (I’m going to draw up a floor plan for the next post, everything will make so much more sense then). So, this two room bathroom is huge and has TWO closets. It’s also the only room in the house that doesn’t have hardwood floors, which is so confusing to me. I wouldn’t really mind the linoleum except for the aforementioned lack of trim. The bathroom has no trim, none, except for one window, otherwise none. It’s so bizarre, but not as bizarre as the bathtub.

I was actually a little excited about having a claw foot tub, then I realized they really weren’t meant to be showers. First of all, claw foot tubs are not particularly wide which means that the shower curtain is basically molesting me every time I shower. Wet plastic clinging to me while I try to shower is just icky. You see how the curtain is puckered weird in the back? It’s because I MacGyver’d up some magnets to keep at least half of the curtain away from me. Here’s another fun little fact, there is no spigot in the bathtub. Yeah, you read that right, there is no way to efficiently run a bath, you have to turn on the shower, plug the drain, and wait. It takes a frustrating amount of time to run just a few inches of water for my kids to bathe, I don’t have the patience to even try to run myself a bath. Also, because it’s porcelain (or ceramic, or whatever), you have to run hot water forever to preheat the tub, lest it suck all the heat from the water. I could go on for days about this bathroom.

This is the hallway

I know, it’s just a hallway, but it does boast a pretty spacious linen-type closet. I also have grand plans for the stairway. I am going to make a beautiful photo gallery wall. Someday.

So that’s the upstairs of my house. Now I think you can see why I’m breaking this up a little bit. Tune in later this week for a look at the main level.

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Dirty Dancing > Footloose > Center Stage > Save the Last Dance > New Footloose

Diet Coke > Water > Diet Pepsi

Seafood = Nutella (both equally gross)

Collegiate marching bands > Collegiate football games

One Tree Hill > Dawson’s Creek

Mac > PC

Bruce Willis > Jason Statham > All the other movie bad asses

Charmin > Cottonelle

Any flower ever > roses > carnations

Football > Hockey > Baseball

Elijah Wood’s Dancey Dance > Hector Jimenez’s Dancey Dance > The rest of the Dancey Dances > Adam Samberg’s Dancey Dance

Target > K-Mart > Wal-Mart

Rock Star: INXS > The Voice > Britain’s Got Talent > American Idol

Brad and Angelina in Mr & Mrs Smith > Brad and Angelina in real life

Yo Gabba Gabba > The Imagination Movers > The Backyardigans > Mickey Mouse Clubhouse > Olivia > Dora > Max & Ruby > Special Agent Oso

The zoo > The water park

Luke Wilson > Owen Wilson

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Feel free to disagree with me but know this, I am right and you are wrong.

No really.

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Last weekend we stayed at our friend’s house, they have two of the cutest little girls ever, but the five year old, you guys, she is such a pistol. As much as I love the toddler stage I’m wicked excited for the “little kid” stage. This is a conversation that actually took place.

Avery – *laughing like only a five year old girl can*
Ryan – “What’s so funny Avery”
Avery – [with nary a pause to think] “your face”

Rendering my husband speechless doesn’t happen that often, he is most always the one with the spectacularly witty comments. This time however, he was left sitting at the dining room table, mouth agape. I’m still laughing about it 4 days later.

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My iPhone died a horrible horrible hot tub death this weekend. We were at our friend’s house for a murder mystery party. (If you’ve never done one, you totally should, they are SO fun) The official party had ended and we were just hanging out enjoying some delicious beverages. Some of us were sitting by the fire pit, others were playing pool, others were enjoying the hot tub. I was standing outside near the hot tub when I laid my phone on the deck railing. My friend, who was IN the hot tub, grabbed it to snap a picture of me. For whatever reason she put it back on the railing because the camera app wasn’t on. I stupidly switched to the camera and handed it back to her. As she took it from me I thought to myself “this isn’t a good idea”, in my mind I saw her fumbling it into the hot tub. A half a moment later that very thing happened.

It was retrieved semi quickly and to my surprise the screen was still visible. My thought was, “I must get it turned off and dry it out”. I fought vigorously to turn the power off, which in retrospect was silly. Another party guest and I went inside to find a bag of rice, there was no rice to be had. In the end my phone ended up in a Ziploc baggie with a hot dog bun and a few saltine crackers. I don’t think I have to tell you that the phone is fried.

It ended up fine because my friend was eligible for an upgrade, she got a new phone and I’m borrowing her old one. I have to switch carriers soon anyway so in the end it’s not really a big deal. The thing is it’s funny now, but surprisingly I found it funny at the time as well.

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I’ve been suffering from an extreme case of the tireds lately. I think I’ve done a good job at still managing to care for myself, my husband, and my kids. Our fish on the other hand is not faring so well.

Tuesday morning I was doing a round of dishes (no dishwasher yanno) and I noticed that the fish bowl was looking suspiciously dirty. I scooped out the fish and was preparing to drop it in the sudsy water when I started dump the nasty fish water in the side of the sink with the clean dishes. I dumped nasty fish water over clean dishes.

After I rewashed all the dishes I filled the fish bowl with nice clean water. I was in a bit of a rush because my in-laws were coming over for dinner so I put the fish back in after only a half hour or so.

Later that night Ryan noticed the fish floating belly up. Apparently getting the water to room temperature really is that important.

I’ll be buying a new fish tomorrow.

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I don’t remember when I started thinking about piercing my nose, I know it’s been more than a year or even two. I used to think a nose ring was only for that kind of girl, you know, the ones who were just a wee bit on the scary side. Then I started noticing them everywhere, my new friend had one, internet friends had them, even my babysitter had one. It quickly snowballed from something I thought about from time to time to something I was obsessed with.

When I say I was obsessed with it, I mean that I really wanted to do it but I was worried that it would appear foolish to everyone else. I also worried that my mom would kick my ass, yes I’m 30 years old and I still have a healthy fear of my mother, they don’t call her the general for nothing. I hemmed and hawed over it (seriously) for a month. I finally got up the nerve to call and make an appointment and the only two shops I knew of (or had recommendations for) said “I’m sorry, we don’t have a piercer right now”. I almost took it as a sign and wrote the whole thing off.

Luckily I have some pretty awesome friends and they kept pestering me until I finally went and did it. I made one of my best friends go with me because a) I’m a pansy and b) tattoo parlors can be a bit scary if you’re a goody two-shoes like myself. I actually made her hold my hand when it came time for the needle jab but apparently I’m tougher than I thought because she said I didn’t even squeeze. She was kind to not point out how sweaty my hand was.

The whole experience was far less traumatic than I had planned on. Even the reactions from my friends and family. No one really thought I was crazy or that I’d gone off the deep end. In fact I don’t think anyone even thought it qualified for my early mid-life crisis. It only hurt for a few days and even when it was fresh it was only sore to the touch. Of course I got a runny nose like the day after I got it done so that was kind of gross but nothing serious. Minus the few minutes after I halfway yanked it out of my nose with my shirt sleeve I’m super happy with it. It looks pretty and it makes me feel just a tiny bit bad-ass, so much so that when I went to get a copy of our new house key made, this is what I picked out.

Don’t judge me.

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Since my husband is working I’ve been left to do all the “moving errands”, including multiple trips to walmart, calling every utility office known to man, dealing with repairmen and landlords, and figuring out where to put our massive amounts of STUFF.

I think it speaks volumes to say that unpacking and organizing my kitchen has been the least stressful thing I’ve done.

In addition to all the craziness of the past four days I’ve also been without TV and internet services. I know that this audience will appreciate the horror of that situation. After two days I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, four days has tested the very edge of my limits. I spent the majority of this evening seated in a dark corner of a crowded sports bar because it’s also a free wifi zone. Believe it or not there isn’t a Starbucks for miles. That said, I promise you I’m not stranded in the outback somewhere, it’s just small town Midwest.

Our new (rental) house is far from perfect and needs a little bit of work but I couldn’t be more excited about decorating it up and making it ours. Also, really, a whole new space to organize is basically like five Christmases rolled into one for me. There’s also that little detail of being reunited with my husband to look forward to.

I promise as soon as I’m more consistently connected I’ll share more.

Until then wish me luck as I stumble around disconnected and enjoy this unintentionally hilarious picture of a pint-sized me rocking a cardigan.

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Today I lost ALL sense of order. I somehow ended up with a bunch of empty boxes in my living room, DVDs and books scattered about my kitchen, clothes and jewelry all over my bedroom, swimsuits littering my laundry room, and there were toys everywhere. Apparently while I was bouncing from room to room my kids were dragging out every toy they owned.

In an effort to start putting things at least halfway to rights I settled both of the kids into their cribs for a nap. Not 15 minutes later I heard a crash and then Katelyn started to cry. I wasn’t alarmed because she regularly has dance parties in her crib and ends up falling over, bouncing off the sides of her crib like a pinball. I poked my head in to check on her and lo and behold she was not in her crib at all. The little imp had somehow launched herself over the edge. Into her toy box.

As tempted as I was to immediately take a picture, I rushed to her rescue and spent several minutes checking her over before calming her down. As I sat in the rocking chair with her I started staring at her crib and pondering how exactly she had managed to get out.

This is what her crib normally looks like

It’s not like there’s a step stool in there but there IS a pillow AND a mesh bumper. I can only surmise that she managed to get enough of a lift to get herself over the rail.

This is where I found her after she fell. Of course she fell over the only side of the crib where there were sharp objects. The thing is I found her almost just like this (only sitting down and stunned, also clothed). Here’s the thing, if she was standing on the pillow and/or bumper, leaning over the edge wouldn’t you expect to find her on her head? When I got to her she was wedged in between the crib and toy box. There is no way she could have gotten herself right side up alone. She had to have landed that way.

HOW?

She was also facing towards the crib, almost as if she had been hanging from the edge and slipped down. I’m so perplexed as to how this happened. I thought I had the mattress as low as it would go, as it turns out I can lower it another inch but I’m not convinced that’s going to stop this child.

The whole ordeal left her virtually unscathed, only a small scratch and bruise by her eye.

I, however, am terrified that this is only the beginning of a long line of incidents. First thing tomorrow I’m ordering that child a crib tent.

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