Happy (belated) Easter

Jack wrote an Easter book back in April . . . complete with binding made out of Cars stickers.  It was really cool, because he did it all on his own, without prompting or asking us for help.  I was proud.








He explained that the black crayon was supposed to show that it got dark when Jesus died.




This is Jesus walking out of the tomb (apparently, this is the "behind the scenes" version of the resurrection story).




And this is Jesus going up to heaven.

Easter clothes

This was the best they could give me . . . and while it's not the best picture, I can't help but love it.

Nine.

Nine years ago today, I married a man that I barely knew. Compared to today, at least.

I knew the important things. I knew he loved Jesus and he loved me (in that order). I knew he was kind and that I loved being with him. I knew his likes and dislikes. I knew him better than anyone else did.

But still . . . there was so much left unknown. Before I was married, I remember hearing women say, "I had no idea what I was getting myself into before I got married. There were so many things I didn't know." 9 years ago today, I found myself in the same boat.

But I got so, so lucky.

I knew Kyle loved me, but I had no idea how wonderfully he would treat me. I knew he was patient, but I didn't know what that really meant until he extended his patience to me for the millionth time. I knew he was generous, but I had no idea how much he would give. I knew that he'd make a fantastic father, but it never occurred to me that he would be so good at it, that I'd sometimes watch him in an effort to learn how to be a better parent.

He's not perfect. I could make you a list of his imperfections and sometimes, on the bad days, I do.

But I consider myself lucky for getting to be his wife. Happy anniversary, Kyle!

Halloween 2011

We did it. We wrestled Ben into his costume. It took lots of coaxing and bribery, but my boys were both dressed up for Halloween. And I managed to get photos.

That might end up being our biggest accomplishment of the week!

Jack had a fever on Saturday and I was sure he'd have to miss school and trick or treating, but it never came back. He still has a raspy voice and a little bit of congestion, so we didn't stay out long.

We only went to the fire station and they got treat bags from grandma, so each of the boys ended up with about 1 0 pieces of candy . . . which is a good number for kids their age. However, they'll totally notice if a piece goes missing. That bums me out.

We had a fun night, although Ben self-imposed a time out at one point. I'm not sure why. He just sat on the step and kept saying "Mime out!"

As Jack was getting ready for school this morning, he said, "If there's ever a fire at school, we go out the emergency door and to the building across the parking lot. But if there's a fire today, they'll be SO lucky I'm there!" I love it.

We had a good time and when we got home, Kyle and the boys popped pop corn and watched The Great Pumpkin.

It's {another} girl!

Is anyone out there having a boy? Because everyone I know is having a girl. Seriously. When I was pregnant with Ben, everyone was having boys and now everyone's having girls. it's crazy.

Remember the shower I threw for Jeanette back in January 2009 before she had Eli? No? Probably because I took about two pictures and didn't write much about it. I had just found out that week that I was pregnant with Ben and was too consumed with that shock to think about taking many pictures.

Well, Jeanette's having a girl this time and I did a much better job of documenting this shower than I did the last one. I've included a few pictures below, but you can see more in my September flickr stream.

Desserts were pretty simple, too! Sugar cookies, oreo truffles, strawberry cream filled cupcakes (by my friend, Maria) and chocolate covered strawberries.

And the guest of honor, herself.

It was very laid back and low key . . . we had a lot of fun!

Valentine's Day . . . a month and a half later

You guys . . . I'm up to FEBRUARY! That means I'm only a month behind on processing my personal photos. Pat me on the back next time you see me.

I asked Crystal to make me these awesome capes for us to give the boys on Valentine's Day. They loved them and often wear them for their daily "races" around the house.

And here are the valentines that we put together for Jack to give to his class. I had seen this idea before done with gumballs, but was really inspired to do it when I saw that Crystal used rubber bouncy balls. They were so easy. So, so easy. The cost was minimal, too . . . about the same price as boxed valentines and candy would have.

I took Jenny's advice and printed them on sticky paper and folded them over the top of the bag so that we wouldn't have to use staples. The back said "From: Jack" but I don't think I took a picture of that side. I'll probably give these away as a printable freebie next Valentine's Day on the LOD blog.

Oh, Christmas.

I have never been ready for the holiday season to be over as much as I was this year. I realize that might make me the Scroogiest of them all.

On the Wednesday before Christmas, about a minute after the babysitter walked out the door, I heard Ben in his room coughing. I went in to find him covered from head to toe in vomit. Sick. Kyle and I spent the rest of that afternoon and evening taking turns rocking him and holding him while he threw up every half hour. It wasn't fun. And I knew that the rest of us would get it.

Things were looking up, though, because he stopped throwing up on Wednesday night and resumed eating regularly on Thursday morning. He seemed to be okay, was playing well, eating well . . . so that night we decided to go to Toledo Zoo for the Lights Before Christmas. It was nice, but cold, so we only stayed for an hour or so. Just long enough for the boys to get their picture taken with Santa.

Side note: Jack was so funny about Santa this year. He went to Fantasyland (he kept calling it "Wonderceyland") with my parents earlier in December when he was staying with them.

I asked him, "Did you see Santa Claus there?"

"No, just a guy in a Santa suit."

"How do you know he wasn't the real Santa?"

"I could just tell."

Anyway, on Christmas Eve Kyle wasn't feeling well and by Christmas morning he was throwing up and Ben started all over again. The next day, Jack joined in. I've never done more laundry over the holidays than I did this year.

I don't have any photos from Christmas morning. I bought them super cute coordinating (NOT matching) snowboarding pajamas and they were both stripped down to a diaper before we even opened gifts.

We bought the boys a wooden toy kitchen and "Santa" left a trail of fake fruits and vegetables down to the basement where it was and they were pretty excited to see it.

In the days following Christmas, we had some family gatherings and Ben had a well visit with his doctor. In three months he had grown three inches! He went from the 89th percentile to the 65th percentile in weight and from the 85th percentile to the 98th percentile for height. I think his drop in weight was due to the stomach bug he had been dealing with up to that point. For the last week or so he's been eating us out of house and home, so I can't help but wonder what his weight is now.

On new year's eve, Brian and Debbie came over and we played The Settlers of Catan until well after midnight. It was the first time I had seen midnight on new year's eve since 2005.

It wasn't a horrible Christmas . . . just not one I'd want to do again.

Tuckered out

I'm all tuckered out. Between late nights spreading holiday cheer, working during the day, and taking care of my family, I've been worn thin. I really needed this weekend.

Kyle and I celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, so my parents took the boys for this weekend. We couldn't really go anywhere because I had so much work to do, but we did go out to eat, do some Christmas shopping and just enjoy a quiet house. Oh, and we SLEPT UNTIL WE WOKE UP. Not until we were woken up, as usual. Glorious.

Also, Kyle and I had some time to talk about . . . well, stuff. It's amazing how little time we actually get to talk about our lives, about the future and to just share our hearts with each other. When we do, we're usually interrupted by someone 3 or under, or we're talking as we drift off to sleep. During non-December months, we try to have a date night once a week, but let's be honest . . . dates usually involve running errands, planning the upcoming week's menu, and talking about work stuff. There are several things this weekend that have weighed heavy on my heart and it's been good to work through those with him, too.

We also got the chance to see a movie last night and it was really good. We hadn't even heard of it before last night, and it only played ONCE the entire weekend. We both really enjoyed it and I'm not sure why it hasn't received more attention. Maybe because there are no special effects, sex scenes or Harry Potters in it.

I've really enjoyed our time together this weekend but I'm also really ready to go get my boys. On Friday night, we both commented within our first ten minutes home how empty the house felt. Normally, they both would have already been in bed, but it still just felt so quiet. And while we enjoyed sleeping in and not having to eat our breakfast while serving two boys, the morning just felt a little lonely. When we went out to eat, I told Kyle that I felt the impulse to start cutting up bits of my food and putting them on the table next to me!

As I'm writing this, I'm looking at the snow coming down and hoping that doesn't delay our trip to pick them up today!

On school parties

We went to Jack's preschool for their fall party two weeks ago and here is my confession: I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate going to my kids' school parties. Probably as much as the teachers hate the massive disruption that having 20 parents in the classroom brings to their every day routine.

It's crowded and chaotic and well . . . dare I say a little pointless? Not the party . . . the party isn't pointless. But dozens of parents there? Maybe a little bit.

But I will continue to go, because I don't want Jack to be the only kid whose parents don't come; though, unless he needed assistance with his costume, he did his best to pretend we weren't there.

I'm sure there's someone out there who can make an argument as to why it's important for parents to be at classroom parties and I might even be persuaded. But fresh off my first one . . . I'm just not feeling it.

Halloween

When Jack asked to be a scuba diver for Halloween, I was a little disappointed. PBK doesn't sell scuba diver costumes.

But when the idea struck to put Ben in a Nemo costume along side him, I was more okay with it. I tried to get Jack to tell people he was dressed up as a dentist (Get it? P.Sherman from Finding Nemo was actually a dentist . . . nevermind) but he refused.

So, Kyle and I constructed this out of two liter bottles, soda cans, black craft foam, cord keeper and extra parts from our nebulizer. Oh, and lots of duct tape. The plus side is that he now has a nice pair of black sweatpants, a nice black zip sweatshirt and a black hat/mask for when it's cold out. The flippers just strapped to his ankles over his shoes.

Ben was so, so funny in his costume. When I'd tell him to swim like a fishie, he'd spin around, try to jump and wiggle his behind. I kind of want to put him in it daily just to see him dance around like that.

"Trick or Treat"

We took the boys trick or treating for the first time last night. Up until this year, we had gone to Trunk or Treat at the fire station. But Trunk or Treat was CRAZY this year and I wasn't about to wait in line for more than an hour just for candy. So last night, we drove into my parents' house and went trick or treating there.

We made it 7 houses and then Jack decided it was time to go home. Why? I think he was cold and tired, but also because I told him we couldn't eat any candy until we got home. In retrospect, I should have said, "We can't eat our candy until we're finished trick-or-treating." But I didn't. Lesson learned.

For those 7 houses, we did have a good time. I pulled the wagon for Ben to ride in, though Kyle ended up carrying him most of the time as we went from house to house.

A lot of people on my parents street are older and it takes a little bit of time for them to get to their door if they're not already standing right there. While they were waiting at one front door, Jack said, "Come on, lady!" Other than Kyle, I don't think anyone else actually heard him. Needless to say, we had another conversation about trick-or-treat etiquette before we went to the next house.

I expected Jack to be more timid about actually saying "trick or treat" but he walked up there, knocked and said it with confidence. Anything for candy, I suppose. He was really good about remembering to say "thank you" too.

They boys were so cute in their costumes, and while I never want to make a Halloween costume again, I'm really glad that we did this year. Pictures are forthcoming.

It's official. He's one.

We had Ben's first birthday party on Sunday and it was a lot of work fun!

When Ben was just a few weeks old, I found cookie cutters at IKEA that were shaped like forest animals . . . one of which was a hedgehog. You might remember that I really wanted to do a nursery for Ben with a hedgehog theme, but hedgehog baby stuff was tough to find (imagine that). So instead, it blossomed into an idea for a birthday party. I scoured the Internet and found some great ideas for the party!

But my last minute trip to see Oprah set me behind and I never really caught up. While most people looked at the party and probably thought everything looked great, all I could see was everything that I didn't have time to finish, and the sloppiness of everything I had to rush through. That's how it always goes, right?

I had a cute "Happy Birthday Bennett" banner that was supposed to hang across the room, but it wouldn't stay up. I literally threw everything on the dessert table as guests were arriving. The table cloths weren't ironed, the trees were lopsided and the buffet signs were cut in such a rush that edges were jagged.

I had this plan to put halved mini marshmallows on the red cupcakes to make them look like toadstools . . . but this didn't happen because cutting marshmallows in half is harder than it looks and I ran out of time. The good news there is that Maria made them so they still tasted amazing and looked great even without the marshmallows. If you haven't had a cupcake by Maria, you do NOT know what you're missing. We ate the last one last night, and I'm grieving their absence this afternoon.

On the other hand, the cookies and cake pops that I made . . . well, let's just say that people would have believed that Jack made them with how awful they looked.. I tried to use a new frosting recipe (which was supposed to be a cross between royal icing and buttercream . . . big mistake) for the cookies. And with all the humidity during the week before his birthday, the cake pops cracked and crumbled.

And because it was all being thrown together at the VERY. LAST. MINUTE. I was able to take very few pictures. It wasn't bad. It was just a little sloppy.

But you know what? Bennett didn't care one bit. And I suppose that's what matters.

Here are some of the photos . . . you can see them all here. You'll have to excuse the duck wallpaper border. There are some things you just can't change. You can see all of the photos here.

The birthday boy . . . dressed by his father NOT in the outfit I had picked out for him. I did my best to let it go.

The cupcake stands and the trees in the center of each table were built by Kyle.

Jack "helped" Ben blow out his candle . . .

And boy did he love his cupcake . . .

I wanted to do a birthday video for Ben like I did with Jack, and I think most people assumed that I didn't because we don't have as much video of Ben as we do of Jack . . . which is false. We actually have about twice as much video footage of Ben. It was just all taken on our phones and doesn't translate to a television screen as easily. My plan is still to put one together and post it online. At some point . . .

Party details

Jack wanted a dump truck birthday party.

That's right . . . not baseball . . . the sport with which he's currently obsessed.

But dump trucks. I told him he'd be happy with whatever kind of party we threw for him, but we did sort of pull off a "dump truck" theme.

Here are some pictures from the party . . . I didn't get a chance to take many, but it'll give you an idea of what I did. You know, in case you need ideas for when your three-year-old insists on a dump truck party.

The invitation (a version of which is available in my shop):



It's amazing how much you can do with one stack of patterned scrapbook paper. I used it for placemats under each place setting, the pennant banners, the birthday banner and the wraps for the silverware. I think I got it for $15 or so.



We served barbecue pork sandwiches and other "barbecue-appropriate" foods. The biggest expense of the entire party? My sister brought in Garrett's popcorn from Chicago. Worth every penny . . .


The favors. I had LOTS of these and didn't want to take the extras home, where I would surely devour them. So, I stuck extras in every unattended purse and diaper bag.



Click here to see all of the photos.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking

My world has been crazy for the last few weeks, and I can't quite pinpoint any one thing. It's just been a lot of little things. I've slowed down on trying to get my photography site finished because I'm booked through August so the site seems a little silly at this point. I've had a lot of fun working on custom designs for customers and in a few weeks will be working with a school in Chicago (where my sister works) on a really, really cool photo project. I'll share more about that later.

The biggest thing on my plate is getting ready for summer camps to begin . . . this warm weather has me so excited for camps to begin!

Here are a few of the things from the beginning of April that I've missed posting . . .

One night when Kyle had a late baseball practice, Jack and I built a fort under our kitchen table. We ordered pizza (after two unsuccessful attempts to make it earlier in the evening) and ate in our fort. Which sounded good, but Ben got cranky, so I started nursing him under there. Then Jack got bored and I was left sitting under our dining room table alone while nursing Ben.


Jack was sick the week before Easter. Actually, he just had a really high fever. Other than that, he felt fine and it didn't seem to bother hi ma whole lot. Our thermometer suddenly decided to switch to Celcius and we can't figure out how to switch it back, so every time we'd take his temperature, we'd have to google it to get the conversion.

We thought the fever was gone and went to the zoo on the Thursday before Easter, but when we got him he felt warm again and his temperature was over 104. It was scary. But it was magically gone the next day and we haven't seen it since.

Speaking of the zoo . . . can you tell what Jack's doing?







Here's an explanation.

I think he learned this from Jodi, and I don't know why, but it never gets old for me. I crack up every time he does it.

We went to my parents house the day before Easter and spent time with my side of the family.


My sister and I decorated eggs with some craft stuff that I picked up at Michael's and wanted to experiment with. Some of it was disasterous, but these were my favorites. When my sister-in-law saw them, she said it looked like someone had too much time on their hands and I took that as a compliment, because it literally took us less than 5 minutes to do these. Thank you, Martha Stewart stickers. I like them.


Ben pulled himself up to his knees for the first time at their house. I was having flashbacks because Jack pulled himself up for the first time in almost the exact same spot that Ben did.


On Easter Sunday, the boys dove into their Easter baskets before church (actually, Jack dove into both of them and Ben watched him). Biggest parenting mistake, Easter edition: putting a kazoo in Jack's basket. What was I thinking? I've regretted it at least once a day since then.

Kyle's side of the family came to our house on Easter Sunday. I can't remember the last time we had a warm Easter! I hid eggs in the back yard for Jack and Emma to find. It was a lot of fun! Ben pulled himself up to standing for the first time on Easter Sunday, thanks to the allure of Aunt Katie's necklace.

Steve and Joy came to visit the week after Easter and we had a great time with them. Jack still refers to Steve as "Stevie." The highlight of the week was when we were all in the car and Jack asked Joy, "When are you getting married?" No pressure, Steve.


I've been spending so much time getting family/friend & client photos ready that I haven't made it past Easter with our own! Check out all of our April snapshots (so far) right here.