Sick of sickness

Since Cam's three night hospitalization, we've all been dealt with the stomach bug on two separate weekends, so we've been dealing with sickness for nearly a month now!  Last weekend we were driving home from our friend's house when Reese complained that her teeth hurt.  Turns out, she didn't know how to describe nausea & seconds later it was a scene from the Exorcist in my back seat.  Good times, good times.  Days later Cam woke us up at midnight saying he "puked."  I was up from midnight till 4am cleaning & taking care of the sickling & then worked the following day.  On top of it, the poor bugger has missed two more days of school because of the stomach bug = 6 days out of a few weeks of school = not good.  Thankfully this is just kindergarten! 

Amidst the sickness, Mike has been like a five year-old on Christmas morning, getting all jacked up for the start of the NFL season!

 

We kicked off the Bears game (which sadly ended up being a loser) with Jeff Mauro's Chicago Italian beef.  

 I've made this many, many times & it is always a complete hit.  It's positively delish, there's nothing more to say about it.  Click here for the recipe & I can guarantee that unless you're a vegetarian or vegan, you will not be sorry!

After 14+ weeks, I finally got my trailer park looking highlights done, so that's another plus!  Gone are the highlights since I don't have the time or money to maintain them as I should, so I decided on peek-a-boo highlights.  You can't really see the blond streaks in the picture of me above, but they're there.

This picture above was my inspiration since I love contrast but not the grow-out that comes with it.

Ever since Cam's hospitalization, he adores playing board games.  We recently bought Trouble to add to our collection.

Thankfully Cam's bus is finally on a good schedule with drop-off!  We were told the first couple of weeks had a lot of delays & they weren't lying!  Reese & I would have a good half hour to kill each day so we'd just walk up & down the street in the 95 degree heat, waiting for the bus to show.

Speaking of Reese, she's finally out of her crib & into her big girl bed!  Cam was converted a lot earlier as a baby since he was jumping overboard, but she never tried climbing out (except for the time we were in the hospital & my mom was watching her).  But now that she's potty trained, she needs to be able to use the bathroom at night. 

Last but not least, we're scheduled to leave on a four-night cruise next Monday!  Last year we sat in on sale's pitch spiel & ended up getting a deeply discounted cruise for only $450 for the two of us, food included.  Well, the trip has completely snuck up on us & with the kids being sick recently, I have to say that the idea of getting on a ship headed towards Cozumel & Grand Cayman terrifies instead of excites me.  We're rarely without our kids & don't often have date nights, so I know it will be good to get away, but I know I'll miss the kids so very much & worry about them.  My mom is coming up to stay at our house so I know they'll be in good hands, I just hope I don't have a panic attack before the boat departs.. I could cry just thinking about leaving them.  I never thought I'd be like this as a mom, but here I am having major separation anxiety from my chillins!  

Is there no end to their madness?!?

It's only Tuesday & I'm already beat from this week!!!  The kids have been particularly ornery & have been fighting for what feels like constantly & I'm particularly short-tempered.  Not a good combo.  Does anyone else with multiple kids sometimes feel like the yelling, arguing & crying is never ending?

Doesn't Cam just look precious in Reese's fuschia polka dot Minnie dress?!  Actually, after I took this picture yesterday, I felt like they would start saying, Danny, come play with us.  Forever & ever & ever...  If you've seen The Shining, you know what I'm talking about.  Anyway, Cam wasn't wearing this dress because he actually likes it, he only wanted to wear it because he was certain that his sister would shriek, Noooo! That's MY dress!!! And that's exactly what she did. That's basically his MO these day; how to make his sister mad. Sigh.

It's exceptionally rare that Reese & I have an outing to ourselves so last Wednesday we hit the road & headed to Busch Gardens to take advantage of our season passes.

We had so much fun together & I realized just how cooperative & pleasant my Reese Cakes is when she's not being harassed by her big brother!  ;o)

A lady was nice enough to take our picture!

We had an awesome weekend since my parents came up Friday night so they could watch Cam play t-ball on Saturday morning.  They brought Cam's BFF, Mikayla & they all had an absolute blast together.  We watched Frozen at least three times.  I love that movie!

I've been a bit of a decorating rut & feeling overwhelmed every time I hit a store to browse around.  My mom & I hit Home Goods on Saturday & I had so many ideas whirring in my head that it was straight up overwhelming.  Not to mention that everything costs so damn much.  If only money wasn't an object!!  I did snag these three turquoise lanterns & wooden tray & I must say that they look absolutely magical when it's dark & they're shimmering in candlelight.  It's the little things that make me happy!

Speaking of ruts, I've been eating like garbage lately & the scale does not lie since I've gained nearly five pounds.. yikes!  Time to reel it in.  Many people don't agree with weighing themselves often, but it definitely works for me since I'd rather nip three or five pounds in the bud vs. ten or fifteen.

Time to cut out the nightly glass of wine with dinner or occasional Thursday night margarita that Mike whips up!  That's a good 250+ calories (more with the margarita) that I cannot afford.  With the glass of red wine often comes a hankering for some cheese or a piece of dark chocolate.  Now it's time to lock it up & have a mug of tea or allow myself a piece of fruit if I'm feeling like a nighttime snack.  I like having a big bowl of fruit out anyway since it looks pretty & Reese adores fruit.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could just eat whatever we wanted & not gain weight.  That would be nearly as fun as shopping if money was no object.. one can dream!

My little turkeys

I love, love, love Thanksgiving!  Being with family, time off work, cooking, the smells of said cooking & the kick off of Christmas that comes in our house the day after Thanksgiving.

 

These pictures have nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but are from Reese's actual birthday on the 14th.  Since her favorite food is pizza, that's what we made for her birthday meal.  Every single Friday in our house is pizza night & we normally heat up a frozen one since it's cheaper & fast.  With it being a special day/birthday, I decided I'd try to make Pioneer Woman's homemade dough & I could not believe how incredibly easy it was!  It took me less than five minutes to make & it's so inexpensive with just water, yeast, flour, salt & olive oil.  Click here for the recipe.  She recommends making it at least a day or two ahead of time.  By the way, I don't have a fancy mixer, but I do have some fancy hands & the dough turned out just fine the old fashioned way.

Anyway, I looked so forward to Thanksgiving week, knowing I only had to work Monday & Tuesday.  I remember saying Sunday night, "whatever this work week brings, I can handle it!"  Yeah, not so much.  It was overwhelmingly busy, I worked long, non-stop days & was completely burned out by last night.  Unfortunately, that meant that I was cranky, emotional & snappy.  That meant that my husband was not very happy with my poor attitude.  After realizing I forgot to send Cameron with the cranberry sauce I signed up for his Thanksgiving school feast, I was having a bashing myself party.  Just snapped at my husband, dropped the ball on my kid's party?  I suck!  Luckily Cameron's teacher was extremely sweet, told me they had more than enough cranberry sauce & gave me a hug after seeing how sorry I was! 

Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed, I just can't see the light when I'm in that moment.  If I give myself ten minutes to decompress & get some clarity, I'm fine.  Grocery shopping, getting ready for Thanksgiving & working while trying to tend to the family was apparently too much for my weak emotional state!!!  But, I'm all better after sleeping on it, it's a new day & I'm off for the next FIVE DAYS!!!  WOO HOO!

Mike's headed to work today, but will hopefully get out early & we'll be together the rest of the week.  My parents come up every year to spend the night the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so we're looking forward to their arrival too.

And this year they're bringing my nieces up for a sleepover, so Cameron & Reese are super excited!

I'm thankful for my family, time off from work & the cooler weather that will be here just in time for Thanksgiving.  I'm hoping you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families too!!

Being content with what YOU have

I remember being pregnant with Cameron when my mom said, "sometimes I think it was a good thing that we had no information while I was pregnant with you guys."  Don't get me wrong, I think that the information that has come to us from the internet & social media is awesome & has so many benefits.  But just like anything else, with the benefits come the drawbacks.  Because of a clotting disorder we incidentally found during Cam's pregnancy, I was seen by a high risk OB & had many detailed ultrasounds.  It was so incredibly amazing to see his face in 3D on the big TV screen in front of me... he had my lips, Mike's nose, and we knew that before we even met him!  Then my doctor told me that I had slightly elevated levels of amniotic fluid.  He begged us not to Google it because it would bring up a lot of (likely) unnecessary worry.  I obligiged, trusted my doctor & looked at nothing.  What did Mike do?  He Googled it!!  With that, he worried about issues with neurological function, issues with Cameron's swallowing.. but then two months later, praise the Lord, a healthy baby boy was born.

Typical evening in our house.. kids are put out back with food to entertain them so I can clean the kitchen!

With Cameron's pregnancy, I was not at all into blogs, Facebook or any other social media other than MySpace.  Do you remember MySpace??  I think my account is still active from over five years ago!  We started Cameron's blog as soon as he was born so that family & friends could check in on the little bugger.  Fast forward to two years later & I had a Facebook account, followed many blogs & had two blogs myself.  It was great to see what my Chicago friends were up to as I sat in my living room in Florida at 9pm.  By following one blog, I'd stumble onto another & another.  I found many, many heartbreaking stories of pregnancies ending with an empty nursery, women losing their babies at the bitter end of their pregnancy.  Don't get me wrong, I had my share of worries with Cameron's pregnancy, but with Reese, a whole new can of ideas had been opened & my worry skyrocketed.  The sad stories made me both thankful for my healthy child & thus far healthy pregnancy, but also fearful of what could potentially happen to these now healthy babies.

On top of causing unnecessary worry, I find that blogs, Facebook, Pinterest & Instagram (amongst others!) make us very competitive with one another.  It makes us feel bad about ourselves & creates way too high standards for what we think our lives should look like.  For me, the reactions are mostly based on my mood.  I could look at a seemingly perfect life on a blog with an insanely organized, large, lavish home, perfectly groomed children, and feel no jealousy at all.  The very next day I could be PMS'ing, feeling fat & disorganized after having a rough evening with my misbehaving children & feel very inadequate while reading that same blog.  Mike will sometimes call me out on my mood shift & I'll admit that it's probably from comparing my chaotic life to the perfect life I'm looking at on my computer screen.  He'll then shout, "Stop reading that crap!"  But now that I've found it, I can't!

  Social media is too hard to avoid with our laptops & smart phones.  And really, it's my issues I need to work on.  I know that I have an awesome life & have been so incredibly blessed to have two healthy pregnancies/children, a job, a home & family that loves me.  I know that no one's life is perfect & everyone is sharing similar insecurities & issues, but sometimes it just nags at my brain that my life is less perfect than that of others.  I also know that I'm guilty myself; we all want to put our best face forward & highlight the good parts of our days.  So yes, I do realize that as that mom from the perfect blog is hitting publish on her perfect picture, I'm sure her children are yelling & fighting in the background too.

  With that being said, I think it's also important to be real & cut the crap from time to time.  Motherhood is NOT easy & definitely not always pretty... here's a post from a few years ago when I blogged about the complexity of motherhood.  I often post pictures of tantrums & meltdowns on Facebook.  Why not?  My kids aren't perfect & neither am I or you or him or her... we're just human & trying to do the best that we can.  It's really important for women to support each other rather than compete with one another.  I love, love, love the message on Nick Jr that says, "We're not perfect, we're parents!"  Give yourself a break, you're doing the best that you can & I'm sure you're doing a great job.  Your kids will turn out just fine whether or not you made that birthday cake from scratch or picked it up from the local grocery store.  Trust me, I'm talking to myself right now too since I am my own worst critic & put way too much pressure on myself.  But, it's a work in progress & every day brings something new!

Poor is a state of mind

Sunday after church Lauren came over with Tay to hang out & enjoy the day.  I usually keep Cam's Lightening McQueen couches in the loft-area under his bed where they're rarely used.  I decided to pull them out for the kids & they've been sitting in them all the time!

This picture perfectly captures Reese's goofy personality; she's so opinionated & outspoken!

She loves waving and saying, "hi!"  Love this sweet little girl so much!

Speaking of love, my little guy was showing off his "silliest faces".

Here's the three little buddies being silly together!  Taylor is such a sweet little soul & so gentle with my rough little Reese.  Reese is lucky she has such patient friends!  We're still working on the whole hitting thing.

Since we wanted to kill three birds with one stone while making the kids happy at the same time, we drew up a bubble bath full of toys in our Master tub.

I adore this picture!  I'm so thankful that these two are so close & love each other so much.  I hope they always protect each other & stay best friends as they grow.

We've had some really stressful weeks since money's been so tight lately.  I took my friend Lesli's advice & began reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover which has really helped in making us feel empowered vs. helpless & hopeless during this time.  Mike's job is also changing up & he's going to be taking a sale's territory which should also help the situation.  Have you ever noticed that when you're in a bad place, everyone else's happiness seems amplified?  That's how I feel these days.  I need to stay away from social media... reading everyone's exciting, happy stories on Facebook only seem to bring me down.  I totally agree with Dave Ramsey when he says, I've been broke but never poor; poor is a state of mind.  When I look at my awesome kids, how could I possibly feel poor?!  I have a husband who loves me through thick & thin, stable jobs, a beautiful home.  I am rich no matter what our bank account balance is.  I know things will get better and I really do believe that God only gives us what we can handle.  I've learned a lot over the past month or so.  I'm a much more conscious shopper, I've nailed down our weekly menus & plan to shop on Saturdays with a very small budget.  It's almost become a fun challenge in a way.  We've also become way more creative in our weekend family outings, searching for inexpensive or even free things to do.  When I watched the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills last night, did I feel envious of their lavish, care-free seeming lifestyles?  Sure, a little bit!  But, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?  I'll sacrifice now so we have more in the future.

Swiper, no swiping!

Cameron was an incredibly gentle baby.  He never pulled hair or tried to hit anyone.  However, I cannot say the same about my little firecracker, Reese.  For whatever reason, this girl just loves to hit.  Especially me.  A lot of the time, she's not even doing it out of anger.  She'll literally be sitting in my arms with a smile on her face as she just pulls her arm back & smacks me one!  

I'm really not sure how to handle it since I never had to discipline Cam at such a young age.  I've been grabbing her hand & telling her very firmly to be gentle as I demonstrate an appropriate way of touching my face.  When she gets really out of hand, I tell her no & set her on the floor where she wails her head off.

I really have no idea why or where she gets this aggression from since we never ever hit our kids as a form of discipline.  I also find she does this to other kids she feels are overstepping their boundaries.  Just the other day, a little boy was getting too close in her book when she just hauled off & let him have it.  If you restrain her arms, she tries to kick.  I'm hoping this is just a phase she's going through since I don't exactly want to raise a bully.  Obviously I want my kids to be able to stand up for themselves when need be, but I don't want Reese to think it's acceptable to hit whenever she's upset.   I'm planning on looking into it, but I wasn't sure if anyone else had any experience with this?  Is this normal behavior or should I be concerned & start looking into correctional facilities sooner rather than later?!  And as sassy as she can be, she's equally sweet.  I've never met a baby who gives better hugs than my little Reesey cakes!

Crockpots & kiddos

Lately I've been drawn to Crockpot cooking on my Wednesdays off.  I get dinner knocked out first thing in the morning so it's one less thing I have to worry about.  And who doesn't love the welcoming aroma of dinner as you walk through the door?

Pardon the not-so-fabulous pictures, but this post involves all pictures taken from my phone (other than the picture below which I borrowed!)

This week I cooked up some hearty, yet very healthy minestrone soup.  It was super tasty & left us with enough dinner for tonight.  I love leftovers!  I actually enjoyed the soup even more tonight since the flavors had more time to meld.  We served it with fresh bread & grated Parm over the top.  Yum!  Click here for the recipe.

Since we've had soooo much going on with the move, Mike encouraged me to hop in on a girl's trip to Siesta Key two weeks ago.  Despite all I could've gotten done at home, I am so glad I went!  It was awesome to get out with a bunch of fellow moms, let our hair down & just be goofy together.  Who doesn't love a weekend full of the beach, a sailboat trip, shopping outing, dinner, drinks & a sunset & dancing to live music?!

I never thought I'd be a mom who had a really hard time leaving her kids, but I sort of am that way.  As great as it is to get away & get a break, I miss them so much!  Although, I do know it's good for all parties involved when Mom is happy & relaxed because if Mommy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!



And this past weekend it was Mike's turn to get away as he headed to Jacksonville to watch the Bears game.  He skipped town just as little Reesers was at her neediest, fussiest time.  I seriously could not put the girl down & God forbid I did, it was the end of the world.  I've discovered that I have quite the dramatic, sensitive girl on my hands.  We're in a world of trouble with this one, folks! ;o)

Cam got himself a hand-me-down toy box from my co-worker this week.  I spruced up the 18 year-old sucker with a little super glue since the stickers were peeling.

Yesterday we headed to see Hotel Transylvania.  I wasn't sure if Cam would be scared by the movie, but he ended up liking it.  There were a few scary parts where Dracula would make a bad face, but other than that, it was really age-appropriate.  I also considered Frankenweenie, but we decided he was too young for that one.

We had such a nice afternoon together.  Until we got home from the movies, that is.  Cam ended up having a fit on the driveway about a scarecrow we bought.  He wanted it inside, I wanted it outside.  I let him rant & rave right by the front door as I dropped bags off in the house.  Less than a minute later, I headed back outside only to discover that Cam was nowhere to be found.  At first I wasn't nervous since I figured he was hiding in the garage or by the bushes.  Panic quickly grew as the minutes ticked on & I still couldn't find him.  It was probably only a minute or two, but it seemed like forever.  Soon I began to run around the house, screaming his name until a neighbor boy let me know that he saw him go around the house.  That's when I really lost it.  My heart raced as I sprinted toward the pond in the back of our house.  Just before I reached the pond, I saw him run around the neighbor's house.  As I was about to hysterically cry, our neighbor who I've never met before, came around from the direction of Cam.  Here I am, meeting this woman for the first time, frantic & on the verge of hysterics, as she's telling me that Cam walked into her house!  WTF?!  After breathing an insane sigh of relief that Cam was okay, choking back tears, feeling angry at Cam at the same time, I met my neighbor.  Super sweet lady, by the way.  Anyway, after we got back to our house, Cam got a BIG FAT time out, I cried my eyes out & we had a nice, long chat about not wandering away from our house & walking into someone else's house.  I can tell you that I will not be leaving that kid alone for a second let alone less than a minute!

Well, this post has been a bit all over the place, but that's what's been going on over here in a nutshell.  Tomorrow is Friday, thank goodness!  Hope you're all having a great week!