weekly ten in pictures

1.   Instead of my usual weekly ten, I thought I would do pictures from our last two weeks.  Now that I have finally joined the world of smart phones, I find I take a lot of random pics throughout the week so I thought I would share what we have been up to.

2.  We have been shopping a lot for house stuff lately.  One thing I do not recommend is furniture shopping with two crazy boys!  No matter how much pre-activity engagement and disciplining we do, they think a furniture store is a large playground and they instantly run to the first chair they find and jump on it.  We are short on babysitters these days so we have no choice but take them along.  Fortunately, last Friday our neighbor graciously watched the boys so we could get on our own.  What do you think of this chair as an accent piece in our new living room????

 3.  Yes, my hair is different in this picture.  I had a cut that day and she straightened it.  I neither have the time, motivation or patience to do it myself so don't expect to see it again for another 6 weeks!  I do find it amazing how many people comment on your hair when it has changed.  Makes me wonder just how bad my usual style is....


4.  A few weeks ago we had a family fun night at school cancelled for weather and a Kindermusic class cancelled for weather.  We had two disappointed boys so we decided to do something fun and took our first ever trip to Crazy Bounce.  The boys loved it!

 5.  Shopping at Lowes for lighting.  If only furniture stores had carts like this!

6. In the last two weeks I have had to meet electricians, decorators, builders and the cabinet guy at the house.  It hasn't been easy to keep the boys occupied especially since it has been so darn cold.  One day they helped Mr Mike build our bedroom, the other I found the one patch of sun in the house and they watched Happy Feet on the portable DVD!

 

 7.  I am doing a new Bible Study called 7 by Jen Hatmaker.  It deals with 7 areas of excess in your life.  This week we are doing a food fast.  We were not able to go out to eat so since we were in the car most of my days off this week that meant packed lunches in the car.  It takes a lot more effort but I know it is so much better than Old Mcdonalds.

My fast also includes no processed foods so homemade bread it is for the week.

8.  A hint of spring in our house.  Thanks Mom!

 

9.  Frozen in a trance watching Frozen.  I am not sure if I have ever seen them both sit this still for this long. 

 10.  Some random Florida pics that were stuck on my phone.  Oh, if we could only go back!

Hmmmm... de ja vu anyone?  Just a little tidbit about my hubby- he would rather wear clothes from high school than spend money on them.  Needless to say it doesn't surprise me at all that he is wearing the same outfit in the above pic from 2014 and the below pic from 2103.  Location- Alabama Jacks, Key Largo, Florida.

11.  Bonus pic for everyone that has been asking for an update....

weekly ten

1.  Time for another funny things my kids say addition of the weekly ten.  I did one of these a while back but my kids seriously say so many funny things that I needed to do it again.

2.  Conversation between Grant and I before bed...

Grant:  Mommy, I have something to tell you.  You can't tell anyone.
Me: (Intrigued)  What is it Grant
Grant:  Sometimes I worry about you.
Me (crap my 4 year old is staging an intervention with me...)  Why Grant?
Grant:  Sometimes you and daddy are home with me and sometimes you aren't and you get a babysitter and that worries me.  I like you home with me.
Me: (phew)
After explaining the importance of Jason and I focusing on marriage and getting out without kids and telling Grant that we are ok, he leans over and says, "that just makes me want to give you a big hug."


3. Grant to Ashton after he had another accident on the floor....

Grant:  I helped you and then you peed on the floor.  We are never going to get our present now.  That is just coo coo headed.

LOL.  I have a gift for both of them when Ashton goes accident free.  Grant has to help Ashton in order to get his toy.  At this point Grant may be the only one getting the toy.

4.  The day I have dreaded finally came last week...
Grant:   Mommy, H says that santa isn't real and that parents are Santa.
Me: shedding a tear inside. Grant, if someone tells you that you just tell them that you believe Santa is real and then walk away.
Grant:  Ya, I know he is real.  That would just be silly if parents came down the chimney.

phew.... dodged it for now!

5.  Ashton has been a horrible sleeper lately; waking up one or two times a night.  The other night he ended up in bed with us (do not judge- I will do anything to sleep!).  I started picking on Jason because he had a ton of extra room on his side and I was falling off the bed and he jokingly said,"you lie like a dog."  Ashton suddenly pops up and said,"mommy, you are not a dog."  Jason and I were cracking up.  About an hour later we were all happily sleeping when Ashton suddenly started his awesome belly laugh.  I looked at him and noticed he was fast asleep.  After a few laughs, he again said,"mommy, you are not a dog" and kept laughing away.

6.   Grant kept asking begging for me to download a song the other day.  I was highly confused when he asked for "knobby castobby".  Hmmmmm??  It took me a while but I finally realized it was "Nothing Can Stop Me" from Planes.  Apparently he has my talent for transforming words in songs:)

7.  Funny words out of Ashton's mouth lately..... actually, unbelievable and hopefully. 

8.  Not so funny words Ashton says lately.... I need to pee pee mommy.  5 seconds after he just peed on the floor. And 7 seconds after I reminded him to let me know when he had to go potty.

9. While discussing with Ashton that daddy may need to go with him to Kindermusik one week, his response was as follows:

Ashton- What?  I think this is a problem.  Daddy will not fit in.
LOL-  Either he is very observant to the fact that there is only daddy there or he really isn't ready to give up his time alone with mom.

10.  Blessing of the week:  I think this one is obvious with a week of funny things my kids say.... I am thankful for the fact that my kids can speak.  As a parent, it has to be so heartbreaking to never hear your child's voice.  We are blessed to have healthy children that talk our ears off and hope to never take that for granted.

Let It Go

Along with every other kid in the world, mine are obsessed with Frozen.  Ashton has taken a particular liking to the song Let It Go.  This is his version in the dark car while daddy was getting gas and he was munching on a breadstick.  He refuses to let me video tape him so the fact that a ladder was in the way of me turning on the light, worked out to my advantage.  Enjoy!

Winter Escape

A few weeks ago we were blessed with a week in Key Largo, Florida.  We went with Jason's family but stayed at my Pop Pops house.  He passed away last year, but his house is still for sale so we were able to spend a week at an amazing house for no charge!

Of course getting down there was a challenge since my BIL's family was on a different flight and the night before all of their flights were cancelled and had to be rescheduled.  And my MIL went into the ER the morning we were to leave with pnemonia.  And our flight out was delayed 4 hours right as were were waiting to get on the plane.  We missed our connection, spent the night in Atlanta, were re-routed to West Palm and had to drive an extra 1 1/2 to get to KL so our family actually missed the first day of the trip.  But, after all of that, it tops up there as one of our best family trips ever!

Thank goodness for a dvd payer and a new Peppa Pig dvd while we waited in the airport for 4 hours!

The boys were AMAZING considering all the waiting and early mornings we had to deal with.  Ashton loved the plane and he kept repeating,"this is so cool."  He had conversations with the flight attendants about flying and after they got over the fact that he was only 2, they all decided he was destined to be a pilot when he grew up:)

Going into this trip my main goal was to keep Ashton alive.  Sounds a little drastic but the house had a pool in it so I had nightmares about Ashton jumping in without me knowing.  I prepped him before we left and kept telling him he had to ask before he went in the pool.  Of course he could have cared less about all of that once we got there.  For the most part, he always asked to put his arms on before he went in.  There was one episode where he thought he could swim in the hot tub on his own but he was quickly diverted.

The weather was divine.  They had experienced cold spells the weeks before  but we were so lucky to have the weather take a turn the day we arrived.  Locals complained that it was 10 degrees hotter than normal there.  We reminded them it was only 10 degrees here when we left:)

We loved to spend the days down at the resort pool.  The water was a little warmer for the kids and there was a beach area with playground attached to it and a splash pad that the kids loved to play on.  My favorite part was the Pina Coladas by the pool as we listened to a guy singing island music. Pure relaxation if you ask me.

My two little fishies...

Yes, this is the middle of the day on the beach.  During the week we felt like we had the entire resort to ourselves!

One of them always has a funny face when I am in the picture!

Grant made great strides in his swimming. He refused to put his head under water when we got there but peer pressure caused him to ask my SIL to dunk him like his cousin and after that, he was hooked.  He wouldn't stop putting his head under and loved to prove to us he has a freakishly long lung capacity.

My main goal on a vacation is to relax.  Jason's is to find as many activities as he can to keep him busy.   We had discussed excursions before we left and had thrown out the idea of swimming with dolphins.  I have always wanted to do that- it is number three on my life list actually.  Jason could have cared less about it so I figured this was my chance since my SIL and her girls also really wanted to go.  So, one day the boys headed off to the alligator farm and the girls headed off to Dolphin Cove.  It was one of the coolest experiences ever.  We were the only ones there so we got extra time and exercises with them.  I couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day.

Boy stuff.....

Our other excursion was to the State Park for snorkeling.  The Keys are not known for their beaches so we only stayed a short time and left Jason there to go on the snorkel trip.  Unfortunately we also left Grant's sandals and goggles there too;(

For the most part we stayed close to the house.  We went out to eat twice but the chiggars were horrible and most of us got eaten alive by them so we tended to stay inside the house once it was dark.  Other than that, we took leisurely trips around the resort in my Pop Pops golf cart (by far Ashton's favorite), did some shopping in the downtown area and looked at all ginormous yachts.  The kids would be sick of the pool in the afternoon so they all sat around with their electronics and sang songs.  It was quite the scene.

We were all sad to leave. We were welcomed home to lots of snow at the end of our driveway and the shell of our house being completely frozen.  Ugh.  The boys woke us up the next morning and asked if we could go back to Florida.  If only we could say YES!

weekly ten

1.  Thanks for all of your kind comments.  I have finally come out of my cranky/depressed/feeling sorry for myself state of mind.  This is a post that I started a week before we went on vacation so some of it is older content.  Just bare with me.  Florida pics will come next.

2.  The other day Grant and I were playing Chutes and Ladders.  I looked over and he had his hand down his pants.

Me: Grant, get your hand out of your pants.
Grant: But this is what I do when my pepe gets big.  It makes it better.
Me:  speechless

oh.my.word. I am so scared for what my future holds with boys.

3. After missing a week of work with sickness, I went back this week to a snow cave office.  The drifts were so far up my window I could barely see out.  It made me feel cold all day long. 

4. I grew up in Georgia which is why I had to chuckle a little after their snow a couple weeks ago.  I used to think that an inch of snow was a lot.  We would go outside and make snowmen and still have grass sticking out of the snow.   So far this winter we have had 120 inches here... far cry from the Georgia winters of my youth!

5.  Ashton goes in for his weight check this week.  I am a little concerned since he seems to be way too busy to eat these days.  Getting him to sit still at dinner is nearly impossible.

6.  As Grant and I were finishing up our prayers the other night, he mentioned Brooke and Alexcyn since we pray for them every night.   He started on some random 4 year old tangent about their heads and hats and what happened if their heads fell off.  This is thanks to his cousin who told him his sisters friends mom cut their heads off:/  Anyways, he ended the extremely random conversation with,"mom, how can Brooke and Alexcyn have heads?  They are a statue."   We talk about them a lot and go visit their grave a lot and he has even seen pictures which is why his comment surprised me so much. We obviously failed to explain all of it together....oops.  Hopefully he isn't scared for life thinking his sisters are a cement gravestone.   


 7.  We were starting to go a little stir crazy over here not being able to get out in these cold temps.

So, we turned our house into a ski hill complete with a ski lift.  And then we did crafts, ate snow ice cream, watched a movie, had a dance party and then tried to figure out what to do with the remaining 6 hours in our day.....  We are ready to be able to go outside again!


8.  Grant may look just like his dad, but on the inside he is all his momma.  He hates change and had the worst transition back from vacation ever.  Between sickness and snow days and vacation, he missed 4 days of school.  You would have thought it was the first day.  I had to drag him into the room kicking and screaming and Miss Rachel had to pull him off of me and carry him into the room.  Needless to say, I walked out of there in tears myself.

9.  The other night Ashton asked for chocolate milk.  He had already had his glass for the day and it was bedtime so I got him water.  He looked at the cup and said,"water, mamma?"  I told him yes it was water.  He asked again and I confirmed and then he slammed the cup down on the table and said,"unbelievable."  I almost peed in my pants I was laughing so hard.  Where does he come up with this stuff????

10.  Blessing of the week: the reminder to live for the moment and make sure God is in your heart.  The college friend I mentioned in an earlier blog received some bad news about her condition and she ended her post to go hug the ones you hold dear to your heart and never take a moment for granted.  It was then that I realized my extreme crankiness about the weather was absurd.  So our house won't be done when we hoped.  So our car has a dent in it from snow.  So I cry every time I back out of our extraordinarily narrow driveway... I am here and I have my boys and that is the only thing that should matter.  Why is it I have to remind myself of that all.of.the.time?

I know it has been forever since I posted.  For a while, I was just depressed because of all this snow and didn't feel like writing.  Then we went on vacation to Florida and enjoyed an amazing week in the sun.  Now we are back and unfortunately I am back to being depressed:)  I pray every night that the snow will stop for at least a week so the builders can get something done on our house and then it snows 5 more inches.  I love snowy winters, but not when I am trying to build a house.  So, for now I will leave you with a FL pic to hold you over until I get the energy to condense more pictures and actually write something.

weekly 10

1.  I was praising God on Tuesday with the results of my mammogram/ultrasound.  And then I checked my facebook and saw the news of two people I went to college with that have been diagnosed with cancer.  Definitely humbled me and made me that much more grateful for the good news I received.  One of the girls was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.  She is my age and was first diagnosed at age 30 when pregnant with her son.  I thought pregnancy was full of anxiety, but add chemo to that... she is definitely a strong woman.  She actually started an amazing non profit org for those dealing with cancer called Hope Scarves.  Check it out here....  http://hopescarves.org/

2.  I tried to stay away from it as long as I could, but Ashton finally became victim to the stomach flu on Sunday night.  Grant seemed to think it was an appropriate time to claim a tummy ache to get out of going to school the next day. Not cool that he is starting this at age 4.

3.  The anticipation of when the rest of us will get the flu is killing me.  I wish we could just get it over with already.

4.  Ashton built me a beautiful house the other day.  Not sure how I feel about the polar bear on the roof though- that might give me nightmares!  It is funny how different my boys are.  Grant could give or take building blocks but Ashton will sit for an hour straight and just build.

5. While I am mentioning differences.... Ashton refuses to let me do anything for him.  Grant on the other hand refuses to do anything for himself.  Polar opposites.

6.  Ashton's favorite food these days is green olives.  He would sit down and eat an entire can if we let him. 

7.  The other night at dinner, I asked Grant to pray and he did a great job thanking God for the beautiful day even though it was only 9 degrees outside and we couldn't leave the house!  Ashton asked if he could pray too... "Dear Lord.  Bless the juice and the pepsi (what he was calling 7 up when he was sick) and this and this and this as he proceeded to point to the peas, turkey burger and avacado on his plate.  It was so precious.

8.  If I knew it was going to snow this much this winter, I probably would have asked for a snow blower for Christmas.  My back hurts.

9.  I was trying summer clothes on Grant the other day and realized that he has grown out of his wardrobe from last summer already.  I knew he had gotten taller, but that just confirmed it.  My baby is no longer looking like my baby.  Sigh.

10.  Blessing of the week: our house is framed!  It seemed like it took forever and a day to get to this point.  Now that it is here, I am ecstatic!  We have had these plans in our heads for so long that I literally cried as we walked through it because it is actually happening.  And then I cried because we had to shovel 8 inches of snow off the main floor:)