Memorial Day Weekend

I just finished reading Decision Points by George W. Bush and while not planned it fit in well with Memorial day. I didn't necessarily learn anything that I didn't know, but I was certainly reminded of freedoms that I certainly take for granted.

I can't imagine not having the freedom to see my beautiful daughters hair all day everyday, especially outside where the wind blows it out of control and it is kissed by the sun.





I don't know what I would do without the right to own land and do with it as we please. What would warm afternoons with little feet and boots filled with water do?









My dad once sent me a birthday card that said, "Pigtails are about as much fun as hair can have," and I have to agree. I sure am glad that we, as in females, have the same rights as everyone else and can express ourselves with our hair and what we wear. Introducing Blythe and her first experience with pigtails! (yes mom, I know you aren't a fan, but really how can you not be, they are SO cute!)





These are girls after my own heart, enjoying the dryer in the same way Jalyn and I did (I think the girls playing in the dryer is more action than the dryer has had in a while thanks to the clothes line and that great SUN).







A while back I used the muffin pan to distribute a few snacks for a play date and Blythe thought it was the best use of a muffin pan, ever. Until recently she would just pull it out and say she wanted snacks in it, but now she has decided she can bypass the dictator of the house and help herself. The reusable cup cake holders were her added touch.




(not captured in this picture is the wonderful mess she left after pulling out all the different containers of animal crackers, peanuts, raisins, etc.)

I love toddler fashion, she comes up with some of the cutest things!







Jericho is steadily standing for 10-15 seconds at a time and walking beside you while holding one had, look out world this one is going to discover the freedom of walking before too long.

We hope everyone had a great weekend!

Mommy Brain?

It’s 12pm, Blythe has just finished her gymnastics class and both girls seem to be in a great mood. I have been denying my family groceries for more days than I should admit so I decide to grab a few essentials before turning home for lunch and a nap. We scored a car grocery cart (well the girls scored and I lost because those carts NEVER steer well) which is a very rare occasion because I usually do my best to shade their eyes when we go by them, but since I was already pushing my luck going to the grocery store so close to lunch and nap I decided it was in my best interest to give into this little delight. We had a great shopping trip, had a few samples, got stuck in a check-out line behind someone writing a check (ugh, is it just me that always happens to?), get two Buddy Bucks and end up with 1 point (lame), but follow it up with a 20 pointer and head out to the car. I pop the trunk, sling the diaper bag off my shoulder (anther down side to the car carts, only enough room for babies and groceries, no extra room for diaper bag), put the groceries into the trunk, close the trunk, OH SHIT, I just closed the trunk with the diaper bag that has the CAR KEYS, my cell phone, and my wallet…Great. I check the car to confirm it is locked knowing good and well that it is and I think to myself I NEVER put car keys in the trunk, and while technically I didn’t lay the car keys in the trunk I did absentmindedly pop the trunk with the keys and then toss them back into the diaper bag instead of my pocket.

My first thought is that I have to get to a phone and dial the only 2 numbers that I know by heart 1) Jason’s cell phone which he rarely answers and 2) my mom’s home number which she NEVER answers

The girls and I (still in the crummy not easy to push car cart) walk back into the HEB to the customer service department. I asked if I could use the telephone and asked if it allowed long distance. Of course the public HEB phone doesn’t let you make a long distance call and when I asked one of the girls if I could borrow their cell phone they both looked at each other with unwilling eyes and I really thought they were going to tell me no, but I lucked out and one of them half-willingly handed me her phone. I try the first number, Jason’s cell phone, no answer. I try the second number, mom’s house phone, and leave a message because I know if she hears my voice while I am leaving the message she will pick up, but no luck. I leave the message “Hi mom, it’s Monica, I have locked my keys in my car at HEB, please try to call Jason.” Then I stand there knowing good and well those are the only numbers I know by heart and thinking IF only I knew Crissy or Robyn’s cell phone they are just down the street and they could come get us, but I don’t. At this point I try to see the glass as half full telling myself that hey at least we only live about a mile and a half away and we will just have to walk home with the HEB car cart and get the spare key. I try each number one more time, no answer from Jason, but my mom picks up. She has tried to call Jason and tried to send him a text message, but hasn’t gotten a response. My mom does know Lauren’s number so I try to call her in hopes of her either being able to rescue us or call Robyn or Crissy who are together and would both have a vehicle with 2 car seats to get my kids home. Lauren doesn’t answer so I leave her a message, “Hi Lauren, this is Monica, I have locked myself out of my car at HEB, I am going to start walking home on X road, if you get this and can either call Robyn or Crissy or maybe you can meet us at some point on our walk home.” I decide I should call my mom back one more time to tell her that we are going to start walking in case she gets a hold of Jason or anyone else via Facebook when suddenly my mom is able to think outside of the small box my brain is currently flustered in. She says wait go to Carters, BRILLIANT. My awesome neighbors own Carters and it just happens to be in the SAME shopping center as HEB and there will be at least one person that I know working there who would most likely have my neighbors phone number and then my neighbor can go into my house, get the spare key, and I will be spared the 1.5 mile walk of shame as I look like some homeless person with 2 small children stealing an empty grocery cart and surely both children would be crying most of the way home because the cart is empty so there is nothing for me to feed them and it’s a long, hot walk.

I walk in and sure enough Landon is working, she is able to call Melissa, who is able to get into my house, get the spare key, bring it to us and just like that (45min) we are back into our car, with groceries, and on our way home. THANK GOD FOR AWESOME NEIGHBORS…. Now you are beginning to see why it is going to be so hard for us to leave this place.

Keeping the Balance

As mothers we are always trying to keep the scale balanced. This weekend I received one of the best compliments I have received since becoming a mother, "you have patience like a saint." Patience is certainly a key component in parenthood, but that too has to find its equilibrium. There are days where the scale is heavily weighted on the patience end with the toddler changing their spoon request three different times and the mother obliging, but there are also days when the scale is tipped the other way and mommy doesn't even have patience to count to three and just says "right now," and then hears the toddler repeating to her friends "come here, right now, not in a minute, right now," (that may or may not have happened today).

Then there is the balance between independence, encouraging your kiddos to do it on their own, and stepping in to help them. It has been through Jason's strong encouragement of Blythe's climbing that Blythe has been climbing these tall structures on the 'big kids' playground for a while now.



It's why I decided to send my 10 month old down a twist slide all on her own knowing full well that there were one of two outcomes at the end of the slide
1) she is screaming bloody murder and we might wait a big longer before trying it again or 2) she seems o.k. with it. I can't exactly say that she was thrilled with the ride and dying to do it again, but she wasn't screaming when she reached the end of the slide. She climbed up the stairs and we helped her go down the slide and she had a lot to say about all of it.












This same independence has Blythe swimming like a fish just like she was doing last year and you would never know that she was out of the water for 6 months!







Now that I am a mother of two I have a new item to balance on the scale, the balance between the kiddos and their activities. Currently the scale is heavily tipped in Blythe's direction and Jericho does just fine joining in on the toddler activities, but every now and then we will go somewhere that has a spot just for Jericho and it makes me happy to watch her enjoy the baby things. AND to go somewhere where Jericho has a babydoll of her very own to play with, that was icing on the cake.







These past few days our home scale to out and about scale is way off center, but going to the zoo with Mamo, Auntie Jalyn, and GGP was certainly worth it.













Jericho has a new face that she wears on a regular basis:



Currently the sisterly love scale is pretty balanced and I know it won't always be this way (especially if they are anything like Jalyn and I were) so I am trying to capture it and enjoy it as much as possible.





My artistic scale is just BROKEN, but I keep trying..







We're back home from a wonderful trip and tipping the scales back in the home direction with warm sun, lots of chalk, and smiles galore!









I think Daddy missed his girls as much as we missed him

Varmints

We have/had a varmint problem and for some reason I am always the one to cross their path. It all started one evening when I ran back home to grab the dominoes and as I was crossing through the garage and into the game room I saw a rat run across the garage. I jumped, quickly ran back into the house, tried to convince myself that it wasn't a big deal, they are more scared of us than we are of them, but it was no use, instead I went back across the street and had Jason fetch the dominoes (losing about 45 minutes of playing time as Jason attempted to hunt down the rat). The next day I was walking outside to the washing machine when I saw the same activity and decided that they had discovered the recycling bin so I promptly took the recycling to the recycling center and made sure the bins did not have anything of interest in them, which is a challenge because rats will pretty much eat anything. Jason went to Lowe's and got some rat poison and set a few rat traps. For the next week or so I (why me?) slowly saw the rat population dying. The first one made it all the way out of the garage, and the next 3 slowly attempted to make it out of the garage door, dying further and further from their destination each time. It seemed like I found one dead one a day for a few days and then they were gone.... I slowly gained back my confidence of being able to enter the garage without either slamming the door, hitting the broom handle up against the wall, whistling, or any other loud noise I could think of to hopefully scare them away BEFORE I startled them and had to see them run away, or in the case of the poisoned ones, look at me, but not be able to move. I think maybe three days went by before I was startled yet again..DAMN the rats were still here. Jason checked the rat poison and sure enough it was all eaten so we put more out and waited for the poison to trickle in.

This last time it had been a solid 10 days (and a good thing seeing as our house is on the market and we have had a few showings. Prior to showings my routine has consisted of opening and closing the garage door and leaving the music in the garage playing just in case we still had varmints, hoping they would stay away from loud noises). I lucked out and did not see the initial varmint issue part three. Jason said that he saw a GIANT rat and a baby rat. GREAT, now there is still poison under there, some being eaten and some not, but they are no longer dropping like flies. So there are either some dead under the house or there are just a few left and have learned to not eat the poison bars.

Yesterday Blythe and I were walking over to the neighbors house for dinner and Blythe was trailing behind me as I went to turn off the water to the garden and Blythe said "Mommy, whats that?" I casual walked over to see what Blythe saw and it was a baby opossum. I told her to walk towards me and I met her, picked her up and yelled to Jason "Come outside, right now and get the gun!" [yes it sounded totally redneck, but if you know Jason you know that right now could be interpreted as 'sooner than later, but it might still be 10 or so minutes.'] I guess the tone of my voice must have gotten his attention because he was outside in a flash and I said "the GIANT rat that you thought you saw, no, no that is a baby opossum." Unfortunately I have had my fair share of run-in's with opossums and I know one when I see one. We 'took care' of the baby possum and I was hopefully that was the end, but Jason reminded me that he had seen one other baby rat.

This morning I cautiously entered the garage, surveying the scene and rustling items around and there was no movement so I proceeded to the washing machine, dumped in the diapers, turned it on the rinse cycle, closed the lid, and walked back inside. After the rinse cycle finished I walked outside to add the soap. I opened the lid, jumped back, heart racing thinking I certainly just saw something move IN the washing machine, so I did what any sane person would do and jumped up onto the tiled sink to have a look into the washing machine from a safe distance (cause you know those rats will get you!) and saw nothing, so I quickly reminded myself that I am just jumpy and it was probably just a diaper cover or a wet bag falling down into the machine after the spin. So I open up the lid, go to pour the soap and EEKK NO, NO, there IS something moving and it most certainly is a baby RAT. So in my best red neck voice I again yelled into Jason, waking him from his slumber, "Get out here NOW and bring the gun." Don't tell Jason, but I just might have to use this tactic again as I have NEVER seen Jason jump out of the bed and get into the garage as fast as this morning. He grabbed the rat baby with tongs, put him in a box and 'took care of him with a bee bee gun.' Then he assures me that NOW our problem is gone...right, well we can hope. But seriously, HOW did the rat baby get into the washing machine? I leave it closed, I know there is a drought, but come on our next door neighbors have a pool, go drink their water!

The worst part about this varmint infestation is what Blythe has learned. She opens the door to the garage, looks out and says "no rat babies," just like she would say "no cars," if she was looking to cross the street. She of course thinks the rat babies are cute and always wants to see them. She even fetches Jason a ziploc bag after he kills the varmint because she knows he is going to put it in a bag and then put it in the trash and if she is lucky she will get to hold the ziploc bag and help put the varmint in the trash and she always says something like "we will see him tomorrow," or "he going to go play in the trash truck" She clearly doesn't have a real understanding of the word 'dead.'

And now for the pictures that I promised....and to continue with the killing theme I have going here I have killed 2 tasks with one stone by making the memory book pages and sharing them with you for your promised pictures :)









Happy Monday!