Mom's Weekend Stay-In

Most mom's go on get-a-way's to relax for the weekend right? I did the opposite - I stayed home and sent my family away and it was AWESOME! So relaxing and I actually had a clean house for the weekend.

Friday night I sponsored the Girl's Night at my house for our church group so Dave took the kids down to his parents. He decided since he was out of town for mother's day this would be his opportunity to make it up to me by staying there for the weekend. I quickly agreed.

After the girl's night which lasted into the morning hours I watched Bride Wars on PPV and finally fell asleep on the couch at 3:30 am.

Saturday morning I planned to go garage sailing with a friend so she knocked on my door at 7:00 am and we were off. We found a few good treasures and had fun looking and then she dropped me off home around 9:00 am.

I had plans to go back to sleep but the thought of having free time and not doing anything with it just ate away at me so I hopped in the car and drove down to the "old town" area of the new city we moved to in September. I've been wanting to go down there forever, but it's a cute little Main Street USA area with quaint antique shops and quirky stores...not a place to visit with small children with sticky hands and loud voices.

My first stop was the Flying Geese Quilt shop (which was right next door the The Swing Door bar). Ohhhhh the fabrics and the quilts in there. I was salivating and I'm not even good at quilting. Then I walked across the street to a Bill's Hobby shop full of model plans, trains, kites and random little trinkets covered in a layer of dust. Then there was a room dedicated to Irish looking stuff and St. Patrick's day decorations. It was really quite odd. Next door was Bill's Suit Shop which I hope for his sake gets more business than his hobby shop. Next I stopped at Aunt Bee's Antiques which also houses the city post office. I'm loving it...LOVING IT! I live in the middle of the "OC" full of countless strip malls and upscale retail centers and yet my city still has the small town feeling of yesteryear.

I stopped in for breakfast at Quinn's Pub (another Irish theme) and had the most delish Veggie Omelet and hash browns ever! That place is on my list of places to go back to. I was at a table and as I sat there people kept walking in and would sit up at the bar to order breakfast. I felt like I was on a scene from Cheers because everyone knew each other and the waitresses called everyone by name. My waitresses name was Suzi and she called me Jenny every time she helped me. Seriously - small town feeling. LOVING IT!

I walked across the street to the Thrift store and found a few good bargains and then meandered through a few more shops like The Native American Black Crow Relaxation Center and an old house converted to an antique store. I'm telling you - this is my kind of town.

I thought of a few projects I need to do at home so I headed over to Home Depot, then to Lowe's, then to a local guy selling plants on his driveway for 2.00, then to a local nursery...I have a serious plant addiction right now! I spent the rest of the evening at home working on the yard and then picked up dinner at a Chinese restaurant and a movie from Blockbuster - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I totally fell asleep 1/3 of the way through because it was SOOO boring! I don't know what the hype is on that movie?

Dave and the kids met me at church this morning and it's really nice to have everyone home again although I have to say - having a clean and quiet house all weekend was a pretty nice treat. I never had to sweep the floor once! Now I'm ready for summer and the 2 week road trip I'm going to take the kids on through Arizona New Mexico and Texas.

If you've never had a Weekend Stay-In I highly recommend it!

My Baby

I can't believe how fast Benji is growing up. Tonight the older two kids were in bed, dad was out, and just Ben and I were hanging out playing. I was laying on the couch and he was standing next to me feeding me dessert out of the play dishes. He was laughing and talking (in his two word sentences) I just looked at him and thought "wow! where have the last 2 years gone?" I can't believe it.

Since he's the third child he's definitely gotten less of my time than the other two did. We were having a special little moment together and sadly I realized how few of those we have since the older two are always around. Of course he has the benefit of having siblings to play with so it's not like he's neglected, but we don't get a lot of one on one time together to play.

I looked at him and said "Benji, you are so grown up. Where is my baby? Where did my baby go?" He looked at me and said "Baby!" and crawled up on me, snuggled down and gave me a kiss as if he were saying "I'm right here mommy, I'm still your baby" Oh my, it just melted my heart. I had to blog this because I never want to forget it, it was such a sweet moment.

Happy Kids Day

Emma informed me that this coming up Monday is Happy Kids Day so I have to get up in the night when they are sleeping and surprise them with Happy Kids Day stuff that says I love you and Happy Kids Day.

Mom: Oh, who told you about Happy Kids Day?
Emma: I just made it up but if you don't want to do it Monday while we're sleeping you can do it Thursday while we are at school.
Mom: Ok. Maybe I'll do it Thursday so I don't have to get up in the middle of the night and not get any sleep, then I'd be grouchy and I wouldn't have very happy kids.
Emma: Good Idea. Then Thursday while we are at school make us crafts and fun things that say Happy Kids Day and I Love you and then surprise us.
Mom: Ok...
Emma: (runs down the hallway towards the bedrooms) Jake - she said she'll do it! she said she'll do it! Yeah! (and the hug and celebrate the upcoming Happy Kids Day celebration).

I guess with Happy Mother's Day and Happy Father's Day she was feeling kind of left out that there wasn't a holiday to celebrate kids! I bet Halmark would love to hire her - one more holiday to sell lots of cards and presents.

So if anyone wants to celebrate Happy Kids Day with us - Thursday is the day.

A Little Slice of Heaven in Sin City

Got to sneak away to the Ritz Carlton at Lake Las Vegas for a few days thanks to two sets of generous grandparents (aka newly certified taxi drivers), my husband's fine choice of a conference presentation location, and a free airline ticket (read: my only expense all weekend was my food - if there is anything better than a getaway, it's an almost free one!) Here is a photo essay of my day on Tuesday:

8am: Sleeping. Duh. Shawn is working on a lounge chair on our porch overlooking the Florentine gardens. If you HAVE to be working, it's better than the office!

9am: Room Service. Yum.

10am: Gym. Sorry, no self-portraits of me on the bike.

11am-2pm: Poolside. After being escorted to my chair by the lifeguard, I read my book all afternoon, sipping on mango smoothie samples and frozen cherries.

2pm: Relaxing at the spa

3pm: Biking with Shawn on his short break from the conference. Darn, I left my camera in the locker room, spectacular views of the lake.

4pm: Poolside again. Two sets of feet are better than one.

5pm: Checking out the waterfalls, white sand beach and views of the hotel.

It was truly a little slice of heaven for a mom of 3 rambunctious puppies and flying "through" San Francisco gave me the opportunity to think about the first few months of our marriage we spent there nine years ago. We had so much fun exploring the city together, but boy were we dumb kids. Was the dumbest thing we did 1) Drive into the city on the Saturday morning before starting new jobs on Monday without a place to live? We actually spent 5 minutes on a PAY PHONE until we realized we had stopped right in the heart of the castro district! 2) Spend the entire summer without a phone in our apartment? It was outrageously expensive and we spent Sundays trying to have conversations with our parents over the wind on the apartment complex pay phone! or 3) Actually sit on our $1 couch we bought at the Haight-Ashbury goodwill store without a cover? We vacuumed and Febreezed, but oooooohhh it makes me sick to think of the germies!

I forced Shawn into a little relaxation since he usually doesn't make time to enjoy the luxuries during his business trips and I definitely filled my relaxation cup all the way to the top! While I am happy to never see the strip again, I would definitely repeat this trip!

PS. I forgot to mention that we grabbed some In-N-Out both on our way "in" to town and "out". While I was really looking forward to it, and the burger definitely did not dissapoint, Shawn and I feel that 5 Guys definitely takes the prize when it comes to burgers AND fries!

A Little More Sugar Baby

Before I had kids, I truly thought I would be a Mary Poppins style mom - feeding my kids spoonfuls of sugar and taking them on wild field trips where barbershop quartets serenade us while dancing with the singing penguins.

However, many days I roll into bed at night feeling like I'm Cruella DaVille and 101 puppies have run circles around me all day long. Somewhere along the line reality set in and I found out that Mary Poppins had a few things I don't have - makeup artists, food service people, and probably a trailer on the set where she could go and rest when she got tired. And at the end of the day - she walked away from it all to rest and recuperate for the next shoot.

So now I have a new reality. One that some days I love and some days I don't. One thing I like about being a modern mom is it seems that over the past several decades moms have realized it's okay to say "this is hard, some days this really stinks!". It's okay to express your feelings about motherhood without people thinking your a bad mom because you don't love every minute of the grind. Don't get me wrong - I can honestly say there is nothing in the world I would rather be doing than staying at home with my kids. There is no career I pine away for or exotic location I feel I've been robbed of seeing. I thank God every night for these 3 precious souls that have been sent my way. But somewhere in the craziness of it all I'm trying to find balance. Balance between time with the kids/time cleaning the house, balance between being too strict or not strict enough, balance between the "mom" me and the "me" me - that person before kids who actually had a brain and could form two intellectual sentances in the same breath. I'm trying to find the balanced person between Mary Poppins and Cruella DaVille whom I long to be and strive to create for myself.

Part of motherhood is giving up who you were and what your expectations were and deal with reality. And then...make sure you find that old self, the person you were before you had kids, and weave that in to the new you, the new reality.

Somewhere in the past 5 years of giving birth three times, battling breastfeeding, and learning with a new definition of sleep I've lost a little part of my old self. Most days I struggle with my brain to find words that used to come so freely. I think some people refer to it as "mommy brain". However, it's not necessarily a bad thing to lose that old person. Sure she had less wrinkles and a quicker wit, but the new me can handle emergency blow outs in a flash (and I' m not talking about tires here), and can McGyver popsicles sticks and kite string into a quality toy.

Each child brings new challenges and it always throws me for a loop, then it takes me awhile to catch my breath and figure out what I"m doing. Just when I think I have things figured out - something changes and I have to start all over again. Sometimes I get into a rut though. Things throw me for a loop and I'm not ready. It seems when that happens I kick into survival mode. Just doing the basics making sure we are all surviving - food, shelter, clothes but not a lot of fluff and fun. Mary Poppins is out the window with her carpet bag and all. I've just realized that since having the third baby I've been in that survivial mode most of the time. Just trying to manange everything and stay afloat. Having a newborn is definitely survival mode and with each child that period seems to extend longer and longer. Now that he's nearing two things are seeming to get easier (ie - I mostly get a good nights sleep which really seems to make a difference in life) and I think it's time to add a little bit more sugar to the mix. More fun around our house. More happiness, less stress.

I can completely see how my kids reactions and behavior reflect my own moods and feelings. Not to say everything they do or don't do is a result of their mother. All people, including our children have a little something called "free agency" (much to their mother's dismay) and can choose for themselves how they feel and act. If one of my kids wakes up in a grumpy mood because he/she did not get enough sleep, even the best mom in the world wouldn't be able to change that. However, even when I have grumpy kids, if I can stay cool, calm and collected I find that things go much smoother in my household and it's easier to snap them out of it. The problem is...I don't always stay cool, calm and collected. I'm striving though. It's my new goal. I want it to be my new reality. A world in which I never lose my cool, never raise my voice unless there is iminent danger, and never feel like selling my kids on Craigslist. I want to bring in a little more of Mary Poppins and shed Cruella like a bad hair day. Wish me luck.

It's that time of year again...

Looking for renters. If I haven't already sent you an email or a FB link or you saw it on Craigslist, I'm making sure you at least think for a sec if you know someone who might want to rent a great townhouse in the Kingstowne area of NOVA.

http://www.postlets.com/rts/2205442

False Alarm

I almost walked back in the house to grab my cell phone on the way out the door today. We were just headed over to Jacob's Friday playgroup to drop him off and I'd be back in 15 minutes so I thought "nevermind...I'm not going to need it" as I locked the door behind me and headed for the car.

I pulled up to the house 15 minutes later as 2 police officers were swiftly scaling my driveway with their weapons loaded and aimed at my house. Honking my horn at them to let them know I was behind them probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but as I pulled up in the driveway they wouldn't turn around to look at me and I didn't want to them to turn and shot. It was just a little tap on the horn to say "hey...I'm right here and this is my house". They both gave me extremely dirty looks and as I explained to them I lived here they told me to stay in the car while the checked out my premises. I think I kind of blew the element of surprise they were trying to conduct with my little tap on the horn.

You see, when we bought this house "out in the country" ( that's a big overstatement but compared to where we used to live in a downtown area...this is as "country" as Orange County gets.) I wasn't used to being able to look out the window and just see nothingness. I wasn't used to not sharing a wall with another family or listening to my neighbors toilet flush from my bathroom. We've always lived in an apartment or condo and living in a free standing house was a bit, well, scary. It was really weird having to actually walk down a driveway and across the street to reach the neighbor's house. So...I insisted that we put in a burglar alarm for all those late nights during tax season when I'm all alone with black staring back at me from the windows.

The thing is, I hardly ever use the dumb alarm because every time I do I set it off, not remembering that it's on! It doesn't make any sound at the house when it goes off...just at the alarm company. So until they call me and say "your alarm is going off is everything all right at your house and what's your password - I don't even remember that it's on in the morning when we wake up.

Well, of course I set the alarm last night because Dave was out of town, and of course I forgot to turn it off as we rushed out the door this morning, and of course I didn't listen to that little voice that said grab your cell phone as I rushed out the door. If I had my phone I would have received the call from the alarm company and wouldn't have to return to 2 police officers with loaded guns walking up to my front door.

After they "secured the perimeter" they let me go back in the house after taking my name and birth date, and giving me a lecture about not honking next time in case someone is inside my house and I let the "perpetrator" in on the secret that the police are approaching. I didn't tell them I had just left and tripped the alarm myself. Something about the guns they were holding made me really nervous.

Dang! There goes my one freebie false alarm. Next time the alarm company whacks me with a big fine. I better start leaving big notes for myself reminding me that the alarm is on!

Almost a Decade

Even though I've caught my husband wistfully staring out the window at the house full of college kids across the street a few times during our beach trip, mumbling something about sleeping in and not having to change dirty diapers, I am still pretty sure he loves the little family we've created over the last nine years. We celebrated our anniversary today, amidst chaos and fun with our friends like we have the last four years. I received a funny card from Shawn, where he wrote that his only mistake was not marrying me sooner. That would have been illegal, so I'm glad it all worked out how it did. Looking forward to many more adventures.

Good Morning

The toilet flooded (not just overflowed...FLOODED!) Why is it the only bathroom we have with wood floors is the one that keeps flooding? And to add to the grossness of it all...I was sitting on the toilet when it began to overflow. Luckily it was just water and t.p. in the toilet.

I had to make chocolate dipped strawberries and 2 boquets of flowers from the garden for teacher appreciation week. I burnt the white chocolate as I was clipping roses outside. Sometimes I have to learn not to multitask. Sorry teachers...only dark choco on your strawberries this time. The flowers came out quite nice though.

We forgot Jacob was "Star of the week" and we had to bring a poster with pictures and stickers of things he liked on it by 9:00am. Jacob woke up at 8:30.

We got to school with Jacob's Star of the week poster but left his lunchbox at home. I had to run home and get it quickly so I could finish the flowers, strawberries and get Emma to school on time.

Ben decided to get into my makeup, spill my BareEssentials everywhere and paint himself red with fingernail polish.

I'm out of milk - no cereal for breakfast today!

All by 10:00 am...How was your morning?

Sayings as of Late

We were at the local "farm" watching the ducks in their yard. Two ducks jumped in the water and one of the ducks jumped on top of the other and they starting "wrestling". At first I thought it was going to be one of those moments I would have to explain nature at its finest to my kids. Then it looked as if they ducks were really just playing as they jumped on each other, grabbed each others necks, and dove under the water. Jacob said" now that's what I call duck, duck, goose.

Last week at church the kids Sunday School lesson was on The Word of Wisdom. (for our non mormon readers that is the health code Mormons live by). At dinner that night the kids were questioning me on what alcohol is and what it does to us. I told them it makes us not be able to think straight. "oh..." Emma said. "So if somebody had alcohol then they would think things like 2+1=0?" And she started laughing and laughing at the thought of someone actually thinking 2+1=0. Jacob was cracking up to and they thought it was the funniest thing ever!

Ben is just full of words lately and is having a great time learning to communicate for what he wants. He is a total copycat and since he has 2 older sibling to copy...some of his finest moments are: Dancing around in his bedroom singing "poopy face, poopy face" (even though he doesn't know what that means). Saying "ewww, gwoss" (gross) when I put his dinner down in front of him, and of course the favorite word of the day is no, No, NO! He is such a cute little guy he's hard to resist. Especially when he says "sowry" (sorry) or "I wuv you".

We are having a huge, HUGE problem lately with arguing and bickering. Does anyone have any suggestions? Please...PLEASE? I'm dying. I'm about ready to sell my eldest two offspring, for really, really cheap...free even. Right now I can't even contemplate a summer ahead full of constant fighting so I need some help and fast!

Relaxing in the Hammock Part 2

The hammock is not always a relaxing place to be. But fun nonetheless.

No, this is not the start of a community bike race. This is the crew, minus me-the-photographer, heading out for a bike ride. That would be six adults, four kids on bikes, and six children in three trailers. After the most amazing Thai feast ever, we ventured out on a ride as the sun was setting over the sound and came home to rest our sore bums while eating sticky rice with mango.

Our Mother's Day celebration extended into Monday as the moms got to spend a few hours at the Sanderling Spa, getting massages, relaxing in the steam room, and giggling over a cup of herbal tea. This is our fourth year celebrating Mother's Day at the beach and the three dads really know how to make it relaxing and special. I came home and found Shawn and Gavin asleep downstairs and Ryan and his girl Holly crashed on the couch - the dads do a good job wearing the kids out.

We had some rain today but the rest of the week looks sunny!

Blogging from a Hammock in OBX

Happy Mother's Day to me. After a scrumptious breakfast of crepes with too many delicious toppings to list, I enjoyed a LONG, QUIET nap on a hammock, listening to the waves crash and seagulls squawk on a picture-perfect day in the Outer Banks, NC. Life is definitely good, but you should know me and my kids better by now if you thought we also had a quiet, peaceful drive down here from NOVA.

UGH! I am already plotting a car-swap for our trip down here in June with my parents and some extended family because Nick is definitely not riding with me! He is the biggest whiner I know. But why are two out of your three children mostly naked in the photo below, you might ask? We stopped for some Pierce's famous BBQ in Williamsburg (and note-to-self, I'm not really sure why it's so famous) and Nicholas slid into a huge mud puddle. Of course his bag of clothes were buried so we stripped him down and he spent the second half of the ride in his undies. But the most embarrassing moment definitely goes to Gavin. See, he's been having some major blowouts thanks to his antibiotics (if you haven't heard, we spent all of last week down with strep). So the poor guy had one in the Sonic parking lot and it was just a disaster. I'm talking shoulders to heels, stuck on like glue. Shawn hit our call button and asked for a cup of ice, but after only a few minutes of pouring ice-cold water all over our child in the grass, we realized that 1) we were torturing him and 2) it was not effective. I have been in a lot of embarrassing situations with my kids, but it was definitely one of my finest, picking up a naked, poo-covered kid and haul him past the drive-thru line into the bathroom for an impromptu bath in the sink. Disgusting.

But we finally made it in time to check out the beach before dark and then swim in the pool until way past bedtime. Enter hammock-snuggling and blogging on a picture perfect afternoon. Worth the embarrassment and whining for sure. Impromptu poo bath at Sonic still debatable.

New Post

Whew, it's been a long time since I've hit that button (the "NEW POST"). Life has a way of getting away from me lately. I blog all the time in my head, now if I could just download my brain to the computer things would be so much easier.

I've been doing great things with my time though. My garden boxes are in and growing. I'm anxiously awaiting my first crop. I think the tomatoes will be first. Can I just tell you - the miracle of watching things grow is just amazing! I love planting seeds and seeing the little plants come up. Or watching my bear root roses bloom into beautiful rose bushes. And best of all seeing the bulbs come up in beautiful purples and yellows. I have to say it's near close to the miracle of birth watching little seeds and plants turn into God's beautiful creations. I'm addicted and in a really bad way.My favorite spot to sit right now is here


Right outside my bedroom door watching my garden grow.

My favorite flowers in bloom right now are my hydrengeas:


And I'm loving they way my rose garden is coming in. These were almost all bare root roses when I bought them which means nothing but a stick and a root. This pic was last week, there are actually a lot more blooms now. Hopefully soon there will be enough to cover my neighbors ugly fence.


We've had fun with friends and family visiting as we always do. Here is the only picture I got at the beach on our earth day celebration.