Green & Pink

This year, we kept things pretty simple for St. Patty's Day. I usually love to have things all decorated, have a bunch of kiddos & moms over for a green lunch and go all out, but not this year! Too much going on already and no house to do it in. However, TJ did get to make his very first leprechan trap. I know a lot of moms hate the things, but it was the first time in a long time that TJ and I got to spend some special time together. (More on that in an upcoming post!) TJ loved it! Sometimes, he's not really in the mood to be crafty, but on Wednesday, he was in a super crafty mood!

Here he is just as we started...

Very intently glitter-gluing his box!

Proudly showing off his finished product. (I asked him to say cheese, and his leprechan "track" was saying cheese!)

The next morning, he saw a trail leading from the window to his trap and he was SO excited! Sadly, no leprechan, but he did score a couple of treats!*SIDENOTE: Does your kid have an article of clothing he/she won't take off? TJ LIVES in those superman jammies. To the point that I've had to cut off the feet b/c they were so worn out! He'll wear them under clothes or over them. We've even had to go into his room while he's sleeping to take them off because they were SO stinky!!*

St. Patty's Day was a lucky day for us in an completely non-green way as well. We had our checkup with the OB/GYN and we actually got to see him! He was called away the last 3 times I had an appointment! Not only did we get to see him, but we got to find out if we were having a boy or girl. No matter how much I said I'd be excited to have a boy, I was REALLY hoping for a girl this time! And, I'm happy to say, my wish was granted! I FINALLY get to think pink and ruffles and frou frou!! Yay!

Blessing or a Curse?

You may or may not know this about me, but I LOVE to read. I love reading pretty much anything, from autobiographies and how-to's to historical novels, even the occasional slightly trashy romance novel. (Nothing too trashy, just an easy, mushy read!) Although I love to read, I don't buy many books and here's why.

1. I'm cheap/poor and books are expensive!
2. I have nowhere to keep the books and I hate dusting! In order for me to keep a book, it has to be something I LOVE and will read repeatedly or a book I'll use over and over, like a reference book.

So, knowing this, my Dad was super awesome enough to buy me one of these for Christmas...

image from here

Its a Kobo e-reader and I love mine! There's only one problem. When I read a book, I get REALLY into it! Often, I can't put them down, even if its not an amazing book! I just kind of lose track of time. And then I ignore my life and its just no good!

This problem didn't occur nearly as often when I had to drive into the library in Lethbridge (the Raymond one doesn't have great selection!). Now, however, its happening too frequently! In the last week, I've read Pride & Prejudice, a mystery by Agatha Christie & a trashy romance. My house is still relatively clean and my kids are getting fed, but not too much more is happening! Granted, I was really sick this past week, so I wouldn't have done much else anyway, but really!

Mediocrity

I've been feeling super blah lately. I know a lot of it has been the weather and not feeling good, but usually I can get over those things. Recently, though, I just can't get past it and its driving me crazy! So while I've been sitting home being cranky, I've also been thinking. Scary, I know! I've been feeling like my life is stagnant. Like I'm at a stand still. I'm doing a ton of stuff, but not accomplishing much! This sounds really silly and conceited, but I'm used to being really good at everything I do. I'm more than a little OCD and a major perfectionist, so not giving something my best really bugs me. And lately, between feeling so sick and being so busy, I don't have the time or energy to put into things to make them as good as I want them. So, instead of being satisfied by what I do, it just turns out mediocre. And that is throwing me for a major loop. And making me extra cranky. So, the logical part of me says, somethings got to go. Problem is what. Honestly, I don't know, but I'm working on it! In the meantime, I'm learning to kind of be less cranky about mediocrity!

WA HOO!!!

If you know me at all, you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE (I could go on) theatre, especially musicals. There was a period in my life where I literally eat, drank, breathed, slept, ect theatre and, if I didn't have my kiddos, I'd be that way still!! (That kind of made it sound like my kids are in my way. Let me make it quite clear that I would not trade my kids for the world and I do not regret at all the decision I made to have a family instead of a career!) I have had many opportunities to see/be in shows, but most of the professional shows I've got to see haven't been my absolute favorites.

One of my FAVORTIE shows is Wicked. I can't even begin to explain how much I love it. Everything. The music, the costumes, everything!! So when I heard they were coming to Calgary, I knew no matter what I would be there. And this past week, I officially bought my tickets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I don't know that I can put in enough exclamation marks to express my excitment adequately!)

There is a catch, though. My tickets are for July 6. I'm due July 4. I may be a little crazy!

First

Ok, so I've been trying to figure out photoshop for over a month now and still can't get it, so I'm temporarily giving up and you just get to deal with my crappy pictures! Myles had his first birthday last month and we had some family for a little party. Due to renos, our house was not anywhere near ready to hold that many people, so we used the church. It was lots of fun. He got spoiled, of course! The only bad part was that I made Cafe Rio pork salad for dinner, but found out about 2 hours before the party that the roaster I was cooking everything in wasn't working. Awesome, right? So, we ended up eating quite a bit later than anticpated, but everyone was really great about it (even if I did have a bit of a breakdown in the kitchen!). So here are the pics. Enjoy (at least as much as you can with my poor photography skills and even worse photoshop skills!)

The invitations.



The tables all set up. (I have a pretty big family!)

A close up of the tables.

The banner.

The cups.

The centerpieces.

I made crayons for the kids treat bags. The first batch, I was trying to do shapes with cookie cutters and tinfoil, but it was not a great success! So second batch I went with mini muffin tins!

The cupcakes.

Myles eating his cake! He was actually really funny. He was really dainty and hardly got dirty at all, which is very un-Myles!

Well, there you go. Finally.

As a side note, has anyone had problems with blogger not letting you move photos around. I click on the picture to move and try to drag it down and the screen won't scroll. VERY frustrating and time consuming!!

Oh Baby!

WARNING**Ok, so, this post is not going to be all positive. Just sayin'. Also, I need to preface this post by saying that I know how ungrateful I will sound. And I know that anyone who has issues with fertility will read this and probably be disgusted by my attitude. I know because I was there once. Just keep reading! I promise, I'm not 100% jerk!**

A few months ago (October to be exact) most of our family got the flu. It cycled through all of us, but mine wouldn't go away! The thought crossed my mind that I was pregnant, but then I said to myself "Not possible! After Myles, the doctor said there was less than 3% chance my body would accept another pregnancy." So I pushed that thought aside and kept puking and sleeping for a few weeks. It didn't matter what I did, I had zero energy and could not stop puking. So, I bought a pregnancy test. It was negative. I knew it would be, so no suprise. A week later, no change. The box had 2 tests, so I took the second. Positive. "Wow, I can't believe that" (this may not be exactly what I said, but I may not be super proud about what I said!) So I told James. His reaction was exactly the same as mine! We sat on our bed and talked about this very unexpected suprise. (I may have cried the entire time we talked.)

To say this baby was a shock would be an understatement. As far as we knew, we were done. I'd gotten rid of my maternity clothes. I was working REALLY hard on losing weight and had finally started seeing some progress. If it was just that, I would not have been so upset. However, I had a baby who was not even 10 months old at the time. I was in school part time and planning on going full time in the near future. James had just decided that he needed to not work while in school so that he could focus on his grades, so we cut our income drastically. And we found out that one of the jobs we have would only be going for another 6 months. All this added, but would still have been manageable.

Our house is what pushed me over the edge. As I've mentioned before, we're living at my Dad's place. To say that its not my dream home would be an understatement. I actually dream of it meeting some sort of terrible misfortune while we're all out. My parents (although both will say it was mostly the other) have always been "keepers". They're not quite hoarders, but keep lots! My Dad has definitely gotten worse in recent years. Everything has a sentiment attatched to it or can be used in the future. So, there more stuff than space. Plus, the house is literally falling apart. Not good. There's mold in the bathroom which we keep from spreading by spraying it with this heavy duty chemical daily. We were in the middle of beginning renovations on a very limited budget when I got sick. James doesn't have much time to help between school and homework and Dad isn't physically able to do very much. So it was me. Then I got weak and pukey, so renos have stopped. We literally don't have room in our house for one more thing, so I have no clue where we are going to put another person. We don't even have room in our bedrooms for dressers, so we can't even put the baby in a drawer to sleep! I already feel like it is beyond unfair to have two kids living in this mess and now we're bringing another baby into the disaster.

Before I found out I was pregnant, I was already feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the house and everything that needs to be done to make it tolerable. Now I barely have the energy to get though the first half of my day, let alone do anything extra like renovations or cleaning. And I know no one else will do it if I don't. So instead, I'm just cranky and hating my living situation all the time. To say it makes me a better mother would make me a huge liar!

All this grumpiness and feeling so sick makes me quite anitsocial! So, I have a lot of time on my hands while I'm home resting. Which is good and bad. Bad because it means I'm always surrounded by my house of things I should be doing but can't do. Good because it gave me a lot of time to really think about how I was feeling versus how I should be feeling. I've also had a lot of time to spend with my boys and remember how much I love them. They can make my heart sing with just one smile. I'd do anything for them and I know that this baby will be no different. I'd lost perspective for a while and wasn't thinking about what a blessing my kids are. I think back to when we first got married and were having such a hard time getting pregnant. When the doctor told us our chances of conceiving were extremely small, I was devastated. I would have done (and did) anything to get pregnant. Then I think of so many of the people I know who can't have children. I know how they feel because I was there. Its never a feeling you get over, you just adjust to it. I know you love adopted children as much as you love the children you bear, but I also know as a woman, it often leaves you feeling like you're broken somehow. How unfair of me to complain about being blessed with a third miracle when some of the best people I know would give anything for just one miracle. I was being completely selfish.

I honestly still can't say I'm as excited as I probably should be. To be honest, I'm still scared as hell. And I'm fed up with feeling so sick. I don't know how things are going to work out, I just know they will. I know the Lord has a plan for me, and while there are days that I still wish his plan was a little closer to what mine was, I know He'll make sure we make it through this just as long as we do our part.

And besides, if this baby turns out anything like these two...

then it will all be ok. (And yes, I realize that Myle is covered in snot, but he's been teething/sick for months on end, so I don't really have any pictures of him not covered in it!)

I'm Baaaaack...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that my blogging was sparse over the past few months (ok, I know its sparse at best usually, but the past few months have been sparser, more sparse, whatever!). If I were to be truthful (and since I'm using this blog as a form of journaling, lies really shouldn't be told here!) I have been less than cheerful the past few months. I've been slightly more than a Negative Nelly. I know they say misery loves company, but that's not the way I like things! I didn't want to spread my negativity to others, so I just ignored everyone!! Anywho, I can't guarantee I won't have negative moments, because I'm still pretty grumpy, but I'm getting there!

To briefly (hopefully) summarize the past few months, I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant (that's a whole other post), freaked out for a while (umm, I may still be freaking out!), began puking my brains out on a all too regular basis, kind of didn't care about Christmas until the week before (fortunately I have an amazing husband who had most things together from our black Friday shopping trip!), survived Christmas and New Years (with much help from my family and friends!) and now have the flu/cold/still pregnancy puking my guts out and nausea! I've accomplished only 1/110 of what I hoped to over the Christmas break, was too busy puking/sleeping/trying not to puke to remember to take any pictures (yep, I'm a horrible mother!) and now I'm trying to get ready for the craziness of January.

On a positive note (I told you I couldn't guarantee it would all be positive!), I got spoiled rotten this Christmas. Seriously, I got an ereader, a cricut expressions and an ipod, to name a few of the many things I got! I love watching how excited TJ got for Christmas this year and am really looking forward to next year when I'll be feeling up to participating fully in festivities! I've also had the opportunity to do some serious soul searching while I've been cooped up in my cocoon of misery. I've been able to look at some things that I didn't initially see as positive and get a different perspective on them. I've also been able to pinpoint a few of the things I really want to improve in myself and my family. I am greatful for that opportunity, although it would have been nice if it was shorter and with less puking! Oh well, guess you can't have everything!