I'm back...I think!

I have been wracking my brain as to a reason why I have stopped blogging. I think life has just gotten busier, I find less and less time to sneak away long enough to post something worthy to share with anyone. As the kids get older they need me more and more, plus I am soaking up the last bits of summer before Natalie starts Kindergarten on the 24th (WHAAAT??!? That is SO CRAZY!!), and then it will be just me and my little man. I am honestly looking forward to it. Brady has become quite the lovey dove lately, and he has just stolen my heart. I can't get enough of him!

I guess I should update a bit about the kiddoes. Natalie. Natalie Natalie Natalie. That girl is all over the place with me. Her teen years will be veeeery interesting. Of course, I love Natalie with all my heart, but she is a sassy/bossy/whiny girl, and 5 going on 15, and drama drama drama with her. All the time! Though she is the sweetest pudding pop I could ever ask for, sometimes she drives me crazy with the whining, but then she turns around and makes me a picture or gives me a snuggle and it melts my heart into a pool of butter. It's funny, because I have heard so many stories of me at five, so when I look at her I see a taste of what I must have been like. A little spitfire that is for sure! She is into all things girly. Every day we have what I refer to as "quiet time" where the kids go in their rooms with the doors closed, and can nap and play as they choose for an hour or two while Mommy has some alone time to nap and play as she chooses (mainly nap...haha!). I am so blessed that they will actually do this for me. Anywho, Natalie always fills her time by playing all sorts of girly things (Barbies, house, shopping, singing, etc.), I just love it! She is a princess through and through.

Brady on the other hand is all boy, all the time. He is a Mama's boy too, and I loooove that! Keith calls Brady hot and cold, and it couldn't be more true. Really he is just 3. We don't have terrible 2's, in this house it's the threes, but it seems that Brady is slowly growing out of them. It is quite a site to behold though, when they surface. He will go from being perfectly normal and sane to a screaming mess in a matter of milliseconds. For some reason he hasn't grasped yet that if he wants some milk (or anything else for that matter) all he has to do is ASK for it in a normal voice. Screaming is completely unnecessary! To be fair, those crazy outbursts are few and far between, only amplified when we are around other people (obviously. Why be on our best behaviour around others? Of course not!). The other 85% of the time he is literally an angel child. He will play for hours at a time on his own. He loves Transformers of all shapes and sizes, and anything related to them. During quiet time he will play for a bit and then about half the time he will crawl into bed and put himself down for a nap. No joke. I am still amazed at it as well. It surprises me every time. I am constantly loving on this boy, and he is constantly having to remind me to back off! Haha, it's too hard though, because I look at him and know he won't be my little baby boy for much longer. He is growing at the speed of light it seems, and I wish I could make it stop.

As far as Keith and I go? Keith is very busy with work, still working around 50+ hours a week, and I am pretty sure he loves it! Then he comes home and helps me with the kids. He has 2 full time jobs and he handles it like a champ. I couldn't do what I do without him backing me up. My job is still going strong, we have finally (after 2 years, can you believe it??) settled into a nice routine of work nights and non work nights. We love living in a house, and are having fun (maybe too much fun) making it a place we love to be. I have a lot of little things to catch up on with the blog, expect a full on essay about our vacation. Complete with lots of pictures!

News

Yes, there is a reason I haven't posted lately. It's because I knew I couldn't post the "fun" stuff until I posted the crappy stuff.

Friday night Keith got a call that was a devastating blow to our family. Keith's Dad, Wayne, has been diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, specifically bulbar onset (which means it affects his speech first).

Life expectancy with this disease is short, there is no cure, but of course we are praying for a slow progression. I don't really know what to say, I knew I needed to let everyone know. And I won't lie, it has been hard. Sadness for us comes in waves. The treatment is expensive, the medication is expensive, the heartache is expensive.

Vacation pics!!

...just kidding! No, I really will blog about it soon, I promise. It's just I have a horrible way with words, and I know I won't do my memories justice. So I am being selfish and keeping them all to myself.

Let's just say the trip was amazing. Family was amazing. Ocean was amazing. Kids were (mostly) amazing. And I really didn't want to come back. But pictures, soon, I promise.

Baby Sitter

Today I left the kids with a honest to goodness babysitter for the first time. I was a bit hesitant, but I have heard only wonderful things about the girl that came over so I wasn't scared at all about that. It was more a fear of how my kids would be for her. I shouldn't have worried at all, because they had a blast. They did playdoh, played duck duck goose and Mother May I, and made me some cute cards.

When I got home and was making a snack for the monkeys I made a discovery. The following text-versation (in exact form) came quickly after.

S: Ha! That girl did our dishes!

K: What?????!!!!! I will commence the adoption proceedings.

S: She washed the dirty ones...BY HAND!!!

K: Ok kidnapping is much faster


Seriously, where has she been all my life? I hope she doesn't have any big summer plans, haha, because she just made one more satisfied customer.

Oh, and on the way home from dropping her off the kids asked if we could do that again tomorrow.

Twitter...

Ok, I never wanted to do it, and I still don't get the point, seeing as how no one will read them, BUT I think it might be much easier on myself to twitter my trip, so I can keep up to the minute memories of what we do (since my memory really is horrible), that way I can go back and recall the little things I might have overlooked. ANYWHO, follow my updates there on the sidebar. Since I highly doubt I will blog much while we are gone!

And we're off!

(Mostly) packed and ready to go! I am surprised I got any sleep last night. I am just so excited (possibly, I mentioned that already??). I haven't been back since we moved to Texas, and it has been far too long. I highly doubt I will post much when we are gone, but stay tuned for lots of pictures!

All of our bags, complete with the travel pillows I made for the kids, found here, too cute of an idea to pass up!

Makeup brushes

I have quite a collection of makeup brushes, and this is how they are stored. It has been frustrating me to no end. I don't like jamming them in the cup, and it's also irritating because for some reason the brushes must scream "play with me!!" when they are like this, because it's so hard for the kids to leave them alone.
I have been searching high and low for a makeup brush bag that would hold what I needed and was the right price. I wasn't satisfied with anything I saw. More frustration.
I finally have the perfect bag! It has the exact number of spaces for the brushes I use most, and it's in a perfectly perfect material.
The best part? I made it myself! And it didn't even take me very long. I am so pleased with how it turned out. Proof that if you put your mind to it, you can make or do anything you want to do!

Low key birthday

Today was Keith's big 3-1 birthday. He got his present a few weeks ago, so today was just a very low key day. He is up and out the door before the kids and I even wake up, so there was no birthday breakfast. The kids had some time to play on their own this morning while I was cleaning up and getting ready for the day, and they put together the cutest little birthday "display" for Keith to see when he got home. They drew him a picture of a football on their magna doodle, they each made him a little story book, they each built him a trophy out of Lego's and Natalie made one final card for him with a pretty little picture. It was just too sweet, and it made me happy that they put all that together for him, on their own.

We were going to try and squeeze in a tour of the new stadium, but since we forgot to check the times, we were unaware of the fact that the last tour goes out at 4:30, well Keith wasn't home in time for that one, so we skipped the tour and headed to On the Border for a birthday dinner (sans loud obnoxious singing) and then headed home for homemade birthday cake and some Ben & Jerry's ice cream on the side.

Now we are just hanging out, the kids are finally asleep, and the day is done. It was very quiet, but I think Keith know he is loved, and that is the most important part.

To Do List

I really have a tendency to just lay around and read or hop on the computer or nap when I get a free few minutes, and so I was really afraid I would waste away my vacation days doing just that. Now, don't get me wrong, there will be plenty napping/reading/computing(??) happening, I just want to make sure I get some other needed stuff done as well. So how's this for accountability?

My Vacation To Do List:

1. Bake at least 3 new recipes. Including this from my cousin's foodie blog. She has tons of great stuff, check it out!

2.Take the annual trip to a local water park. First time was NRH2O, last year we went to Hawaiian Falls. This year it will be where ever is cheapest, haha!

3. Go to bed and wake up early (at least once). Ha ha.

4. Take the Cowboys Stadium tour.

5. Complete a sewing project.

6. Organize my fabric stash.

7. Get Keith to the dentist and the kids to the eye doctor.

Oh yeah, and the best one:

8. RELAX!

Of course now that I wrote this down, I will probably not do half of these things, but as long as I enjoy every minute, spend a million hours with the kids and Keith and visiting family (WOO HOO) I know I will look back and feel good about what I accomplished.

First weekend

I just had/have so many things that I want to get accomplished over my vacation days, that I knew I needed to take one weekend to veg out before I really get down to business. Except why can't life ever let me veg out?

I feel like I have been going non stop the last two days, and I am so glad it is Sunday because I can't run any errands! Not to mention the fact that the weather here has been out of control! I am afraid for our electricity bill to arrive. We have been pretty much living without any lights on, so that we can have the AC set at a comfortable temperature. Though I am hearing much worse horror stories about fritzing units and such, so I think we are pretty lucky as far as that goes! I am grateful ours broke awhile back, so that it runs fine now, and run it does! It's pretty much on all day.

Friday we met with one of Natalie's school friends at a little water park, and I feel bad because we stayed for MAYBE 30 minutes. It was just too hot! Even playing in the splashers, I knew my kids were gonna melt away. It's just not pretty.

I also had a huge project thing to do for church today, that thankfully Keith helped me finish which means that tonight I can start sewing something new I am cooking up. I picked up some cute fabric yesterday, and I can't wait to cut into it. I love when I get in the mood to sew. Let's hope that what I want to make turns out! Especially since the second one I make will be for a giveaway for my blogiversary! :D

Oh, and one more thing. Yesterday we ventured to Costco to pick up a few things we just couldn't live without (doesn't everyone need a giant thing of animal crackers, or a package of 60 eggos, or 2 HUGE things of crunchy peanut butter, or maybe Punch Out for the wii is more your style...), and ended up getting everyone a book for the upcoming trip. Seriously, what is it about that store?? We always buy more things than we went in for, but it's all stuff we need (have you tried Mr. Yoshida's sauce before? It's amazing, and we have been looking all over for it and apparently we missed the memo that you can only buy it at Costco or Sam's. So Woo Hoo Costco!). Anywho. At least that's what we tell ourselves...but, I am getting off track. The books. Keith was happy to find the next book in the series is he is currently loving (The Ranger's Apprentice) for super cheap, and I was happy to find something that looked so crazy I just had to get it. I am not normally a book buyer, I prefer the library for selection, but this one had to come home with me.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Click the link, I am not making this up! I can't wait to read it and see if they butchered the book, or if, like the critics say, it's actually pretty entertaining! Sad thing is I have to wait a week before I can start it.
Anyone else have some fun books lined up for summer time reading?