No turning back now!

All my life I have felt young, and I have yearned to be older, wiser, more experienced, more mature, highly regarded.  I assume we all have felt that way from time to time.  I remember in grade school I would watch the older kids sitting in the back of the bus.  The girls with their pierced ears, their cooler backpacks.  By the time I was old enough to ride in the back of the bus though (which I actually never did by the way lol)  I was dreaming about bigger and better things.  I couldn't wait to move on to jr high school with lockers and make up and (hopefully) boys :) I still felt too young, like too much of a baby to get the things I really wanted.  When jr high days came, I was looking onward to high school.  Thinking about cars, part time jobs, real boyfriends, college applications, the future.  And as you might imagine, high school years were filled with dreams about the freedoms of college, the thrill of higher education, the excitement of striking out on my own.  It seemed no matter what I did, no matter how many years went by, I was still just too frustratingly young!  I felt young on my wedding day (and I suppose at 21, I was)  and I was sure there were probably a few well meaning guests in the crowd silently shaking their heads at my youthful fool-hardiness.  I felt too young when my son was born.  Like I wouldn't be taken seriously as a mother because I still had a baby face myself.  Every time a stranger responded with surprise when I told them "actually this is my son"  I felt the desire to speed up time, to go shop for a new wardrobe, to re-evaluate the way I wore my hair.  Instead of "Ten Years Younger"  I was on the hunt for "Ten Years Older."

I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line I stopped caring.  At some point I settled into myself and I no longer spent time worrying about looking or feeling too young.  Perhaps with the births of my second and third sons, I just became too busy to notice such things.  Who knows. For the past few years, I have even had a hard time remembering my exact age, it just seems to not matter anymore.  Recently however, I have started to be aware of my age in a new way.  I am now closer to 30 than I am to 20.  All of a sudden some of the excuses I have been telling myself for years are getting harder to believe.  I am having a hard time convincing myself that I don't need to worry about daily moisturizers and night creams and eye creams and face scrubs.  I'm having a hard time believing that I don't need to stress if I don't put money into my IRA every month. It's difficult to tell myself it's alright if I'm slacking on my house keeping because I'm a "young mom" after all!  Even more difficult to tell myself I don't need to join a gym yet, because I am still young and can eat whatever I want.

So here's to a new year and the second half of my 20's.  Here's to a new gym membership, skin products, savings plans, housekeeping routines and even self imposed bedtimes. And here's to no longer feeling too young ;-)

Here we go again....

Birthday party round two this afternoon, the boys had a great time! This party had an adorable monkey theme that stretched from the pin the butterfly on the monkey game, to the super cute monkey and bananas cupcake cake to the pinata, to little stuffed monkeys and monkey beach balls in the goody bags, well done!

The party was about an hour out of town, and this was our first time visiting the town of Molalla .  I didn't really see enough of the town to claim I have a full impression, but the part I did see looked cute.  A small town feel with nice homes.

The drive itself was a little eventful.  The sky opened up on us as we were passing through the Keizer area and it was coming down so fast there was standing water on the freeway and pretty poor visibility from all the spray.  Traffic slowed down to about 45 mph and I was worried we were going to crawl along all the way to Molalla.  Luckily we passed through the rain in about 3 miles and it was smooth sailing from there.

Well, it's time to feed the troops! Black bean-zucchini quesadillas tonight, yummy!

Party Party Party!

Wow, we are riding the birthday party roller-coaster this month!  We started off with a bang this weekend, with back to back birthday parties and will finish out the month with two more kid parties and one "adult" party for a grand total of SIX birthday honorees in January!  What can I say, I guess we are naturally drawn to those Capricorns and Aquariuses ha ha!

Yesterday's party was a real blast.  The venue was fantastic, a super sized tube structure with wave slides and rope bridges, a real kid paradise!  There was also a great padded floor area with little climbers and club houses for the super little guys to enjoy.  Little-Bug was really having a good time, but he couldn't quite master the small lip of the padded flooring.  He would trip on his way up and trip on his way down, but he just wouldn't stop walking back and forth (crazy guy.)

The drive to the party was long, but beautiful.  It took us about an hour to get there and we we passed through some amazing farm land with huge open fields. We saw old wooden railroad bridges, really unique riparian areas and a few ponds loaded with ducks and Dusky Canada Geese.  The sky was full of dark, ominous clouds that were very dramatic against the wide open landscape!

Butlerfest 2011

I'm expecting my sister this afternoon, she is stopping for a visit on her way from LA to Washington. We're planning to pack as much fun as possible into our short visit so naturally we are starting off the revelries with Butlerfest 2011 :) 

 

 We have a great Gerard Butler movie marathon lined up, "300,"  "Dear Frankie,"  "The Bounty Hunter,"  "Law Abiding Citizen," and "Phantom of the Opera."
                                                                                                                                                 
And some tasty snacks on the menu:   BUTLERscotch brownies,  peanutBUTLER and jelly sandwhiches, BUTLERfingers, and microwave popcorn, ultimate BUTLER  :)  hee hee  Bring it on!!

Christmas Time is Here

Wow, where did the year go? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was sitting under a warm blanket at 4am, cradling my sweet Little-Bug and watching his wide eyes stare in wonder at the twinkling Christmas tree lights. I always wonder if he will have a special fondness in his heart for holiday lights as he grows older since they were the first piece of the world that really made an impression on him.

This Christmas was the second time in our small family's history that we have spent the holiday on our own. My parents were hosting the annual Christmas Eve dinner with my dad's side of the family this year, so they weren't able to drive down to spend Christmas day at our house and Hubby's parents were leaving for Puerto Rico the day after Christmas, so they needed to stay home this year as well. We made the most of our solo-holiday by staying in our pajamas for the entire day. Santa brought the boys a batcave, space shuttle and a musical activity table which entertained the boys for hours. They were so popular in fact that no one even thought to eat any candy from the stockings until late afternoon (yes!) Hubby picked up on my not-so-subtle hints and gifted me a new speaker dock for the itouch he gave me two years back on my birthday. I am loving it (and I'm sure he is slightly remorseful now that he is being subjected to my song picks 24/7)

I was really excited this Christmas to give Hubby exactly what he has been wanting...an android internet tablet! I was pretty sure something this fantastic would be out of the price-range this year, but I lucked out and found one on amazon's blackfriday sale for HALF-off! (making it's price tag only nauseating instead of full-on vomit inducing) I snatched it up right away and even managed to find a great carrying case for it at best buy. Yes, I had secured the perfect gift for Hubby. The excitement did not last long however, because it has proven to be the poster child for unmercifully irritating technology. First, before Hubby could even connect to the app store to download some android features, he had to download and install a software update (?!) which required a stable wi-fi connection (thank you useless cricket wireless router) For two days Hubby attempted this download again, and again....and again. Each time the wi-fi connection faltered mid-download, starting the processes all over again. Yes, this year for Christmas I gave my husband a giant, technological headache! (Your welcome honey!!!)

The day after Christmas we were treated to a visit from my parents. They came bearing gifts and the boys were most excited to see them, waiting at the window for Grandma and Grandpa's car to come into view. My parents brought the boys a new soccer net (a real one!) and the boys are very anxious to get outside and try it out. I am trying to convince them we should wait for the rain to stop...then again, this is Oregon and that may never happen :)

Reasons carpet is no fun

I have always sworn to Hubby that any house we own will be completely without carpet. I am guessing the original inventor(s) imagined a nice carpet would warm up the floor, cushion the feet, etc. But with central air and comfy slippers...I just don't see the need.

What I DO see is an extremely vulnerable (see: everything lands on me) part of the house which is made of stain-able, difficult to clean material. My life would become immeasurably easier if I could only rid my house of all things carpet.

For example, last night when I dropped an entire bowl of chili on the floor as I carried it to the table (still not sure how that one happened) instead of spending the next hour on my hands and knees scrubbing the carpet and picking beans out of the fibers...I could have simply wiped it up...maybe used the mop if I was feeling ambitious.

Similarly, tonight...when the boys were running around naked, fresh from the bath while I laid out pajamas, grabbed diapers and put toothpaste on their respective brushes, the massive poop Middle-Bug decided to deposit on his bedroom floor would have been a much simpler task to clean. Also...when Big-Bug and Middle-Bug BOTH stepped in the pile, then ran out to tell me "poop is here!" it wouldn't have resulted in a trail from one end of the house to the other, requiring much knee-work and multiple bottles of cleaner/stain remover. And can I just say...it's one thing to step in your own poop when you're a toddler...but your brother's? That's just gross.

The adventures of Middle-Bug continue...

This child is trying to give me a heart attack! Middle-Bug, who is currently approaching 21 months of age, has a new found love...football. When I walk into his room in the morning to get him from his crib, his first words to me are "Wook! Bookball!" as he excitedly points to his toy box. The second his feet hit the floor he runs over and picks up his beloved ball, which he continues to clutch to his chest while his diaper is changed and breakfast is prepared. Throughout the day he will present his ball to me with a sweet "pwease!" hoping I will hold it so he can take a running kick, sometimes I will admit, I indulge him (he actually has a pretty good kick!) Later as I sit on the floor with the boys, Middle-Bug will go down into a three-point stance, look at me from across the room and yell "hut, hut, hike!" and tackle me for all he's worth (which thankfully ends up very similar to a hug.) Harmless enough, right? Well here comes the problem. Middle-Bug's 3 year old big brother is his favorite playmate and is more than pleased to engage in a little game of football with his baby brother. Only, in Big-Bug's eyes, Middle-Bug isn't much of a baby anymore and doesn't require the gentle touch of days gone by. So the other day, as I innocently stand in the kitchen preparing dinner, the boys start up a game of football in the living room. I can't see them from my angle, but I hear plenty of giggles on both sides so figure they are having a good time. Not a minute later, the boys come barreling into view, Middle-Bug in the lead (with the "bookball") and Big-Bug in hot pursuit. As they near the dining room table (yep, you can see where this is headed) Big-Bug tackles Middle-Bug from behind, sending him flying forward through the air. His flight is stopped by the corner of a leg of a dining room chair which catches him directly in the eye/brow bone/cheek bone and instantly bruises in a long vertical line down the entire left side of his face. I immediately assume the worst and spend the next 15 minutes poking and prodding on Middle-Bug's face checking for fractures or tenderness and watching his pupils for normal constriction/dilation. Once I had satisfied myself that the bruise is the worst of his injuries, I served dinner. So now my 21 month old son has the gnarliest of black eyes as well as a huge bruise to his cheek. His first football injury....time to buy that kid a helmet with a face guard.