I've Caved

So today I have caved in 2 major ways. no not the two giant cookies I ate. I caved in the area of Star Wars and birthdays. As most of you know who have young ins, they think and talk about their birthday all year. Cooper every so often sees something or thinks of something and then says, "thats what I want to do for my bday or thats what I want for my bday". And he'll do this one week after his birthday. I don't really start taking him seriously until about the end of August. he is an october baby. I know some of you with toddlers are like, what, I don't get to pick and plan my kids parties forever. No you don't, so get all the wonderful non-character ideas out of your system now, because once they hit 5 or so, they all of a sudden have an opinion and realize that your cute creative handmade invites and favors aren't plastic, make noise, and have their favorite hero on them. although last year I used all my mommy skills of manipulation into getting him to agree that a firefighter birthday would be the coolest ever. Anyhoo, I digress. So initially Cooper wanted a superhero party. Shocking I know. And I have done a superhero party for parker when he was 5. It was so much fun, and a lot of work. Ugh, I didn't know if I had it in me again. Lately I have been fighting this super party planner in me. I am all about planning my kids parties, we have done bug hunts, real firetrucks, father son building projects, zoo outings, all low on the pocketbook, high on creativity. But I just don't know if I have it in me this time around. I even kinda caved with Parker's last by going bowling. So anyway, all I really wanted to do for Cooper is go to one of those places that does all the work for you or rent a jumper or something. But the cheapskate in me just couldn't fork out the money. do you know it is nearly impossible to spend under $100 for a party after cakes, favors, games, decor, etc! But I still didn't want to put the work into it. So here are my two big caves. I am hosting a Star Wars party (yes I caved to this obsession) at, drumroll please, we are going to Chuck E Cheese! And to top it off I went to Wal-mart and bought all their tacky Star Wars partyware, even the ugly invites and partyfavors. I hope some of you who are all about this means of party planning aren't thinking I am the biggest snob. I'm really not, but party planning has always been the one domestic nurturing kinda thing I could actually do. I don't sew patches, I can't cook well, besides pounding chicken, cleaning, nope, nor crafts with the kids. So this was my one thing, and I am giving it up just this once. ahem. And you know what. Cooper is so so excited. He is already telling all his friends about going to chuck e cheese, although he probably doesn't realize we aren't doing the whole party package, pizza and all, just cake and tokens on a walk in basis. and he about blew a gasket of excitement when he saw all the walmart star wars crap. He lined it all up, raced to Ritchey to show him, he is so excited. My poor middle child, oh well, based on his reaction, I guess I am a good mom afterall.

Pleasant Friday

Today was such a pleasant day. Ritch has Fridays off, but between travels and craziness if feels like we haven't had one in a while. Days off also haven't been pleasant much because our boys are in a psycho rowdy high energy phase can it be called a phase when we are going on probably 2 months straight, or 4 years straight. Its hard to enjoy family time when they are crazy little beasts. They are such good friends, laughing and cohorting and fake battling all the time, I love listening to them laugh and egg each other on sometimes, so I am glad they are so close and the stressful parts aren't fights or anything, but still hard to deal with on a daily basis with little reserves of patience and energy. But alas, today was a beautiful day minus once the lights were turned out in their room, which got a bit out of control. As you know Cooper is student of the week this week, thus my crafty poster. And what this means, other than being the ever so important line leader, is that he gets to introduce himself in chapel and help lead songs along with the other students of the week. He has seen this ceremony many times as we have visited chapel often over the years. So he was sooo excited, and actually practiced many times this week, "Hi, I'm Cooper Cable and I'm in Ms. Lisa's class". He has been so cute and counting down the days although he still has no idea the order of the days of the week. But the other cool thing is that Parker too was star student for racking up the most good behavior points see they save it all for home. So that meant we had double duty today in chapel, it was so fun. The boys wanted to stand next to each other to help with songs and line up to introduce themselves. I'll post some pics below and maybe a video. We had a blast. Ritch sat with Cooper's class and Sophie and I sat with Parker's class. Parker has been primarily with the same kids since Pre-K, they knew me with baby Cooper, saw me prego with Sophie, and have now seen Sophie grow up. I'm kinda like a celebrity involved mom to them :). The boys had a ball, singing, jumping, song motions, all the fun stuff with chapel. And even though Parker has been so reserved in chapel and barely gets his name out in past years, Cooper shined! He belted his name out in pride and ran back to his seat as fast as he could he even practiced his speed at home. It was just a fun time of parental pride, worshipping with young ones, and oh camo. Today was the beginning of hunting season so students were allowed to wear camo, of which I thought we had none. I did find camo shorts for Cooper in his drawer, and thanks to the 50% off all clearance items at Old Navy that sucked me in big time, I found some breakaway camo pants for $3 for Parker. And boy were the other boys and girls decked out, they even had a short devotional on hunting gear and the armor of God, kinda scary and definitely not PC for all you northerners. Anyhoo, wonderful morning with my boys. I then hit Old Navy again and then worked out for a longer period. And then unlike most recent evenings, we had a delightful time as a family. We made those marriage testing star wars pancakes again, eggs, fruit salad and bacon for dinner, no complaints from the peanut gallery, then the boys helped me make homeade choc. chip cookies. Cooper literally stuck his hand in the sugar bowl and scooped it up and put a handful in his mouth. Lovely, not to mention half the bag of chips, but I guess this is what cooking with kids is like. its probably why I never do it, but should. They were extra large and oh so yummy, and then after Sophie went to bed we sat around and played Scrabble. Parker's version anyway. All of us having a good quiet time around the table. Cooper even worked on his reading skills and Parker impressed me with his spelling and scrabble skills too. The joke of the night from Ritchey which I should start blogging more of, was that when I asked the kids to clean up all the Scrabble pieces he found the letters, "F" and "the vowel that comes after T" singled out among the others. Ritch said it was a hidden message from them in regards to my cleaning demands.  Whatever! I know this evening probably sounds boring to many of you. But we have been in such a boring, watch movies at night, crazy kid rut, that it was nice to have a "family" night. And tomorow we are off to Baton Rouge to have some fun and for Ritchey to guest preach at a church down there. We never get away for weekends, being in church work and all, so we are looking fwd to it. So yay for pleasant days with a 2, 4, and 7 year old! Oh and P.S. Cooper tore all the pictures off of his poster, I was so frustrated that was going to make a debut at his birthday party too, thanks to my wonderful crafty husband though, he fixed it while I was out! Enjoy maybe the following videos and extra pics from the week. (including a picture of sophie sleeping at night, half out of bed. This is getting to be normal for her as she wanders around once her door is shut and I suppose can't find her way in the pitch dark all the way back into her bed so just gives up and goes to sleep!)

Full throws of Motherhood

So you kind of think the early years are rough. Middle night feedings, spit up, tantrums and the sort. We all can't wait until our kids go back to school and life gets easier. Well its not, big shock to some of you out there. The emotional battles are definitely harder and more raging, the amount of arguing going on with me, sheesh. But this Saturday has tested my limits beyond what is normal for a individual like me, yes folks badge sewing and scrapbookin sort of. So first off I had to go buy Parker's scout uniform, read earlier posts to see my thoughts on that. I have no idea what in the world I am supposed to buy and like I always do, I just wanted to buy the bare minimum, no centennial patches for him or shiny gold stars that aren't a minimum requirment. So $45 later I left with the basics.  Then it was off to Hobby Lobby a mother in the throws mecca the get the necessary things for this project and the necessary things for my 2nd motherhood test, a poster for Cooper all about him. He is of course Student of the Week, and somehow all Parker's past teachers did not require such an endeavor, so for the first time I am having to get creative and artsy and put together a montage to show off to the class. So Hobby Lobby was going to solve both my poster and scouting needs. And being the great mom that I am, I tried to include Cooper in all of the process, because the instructions said to make this a family activity. So he picked out his favorite poster board its bright and his favorite color paper for his name. Anyway long story short, including swinging my scrapbooking expert friend Emily's house and after the kids went to bed, I tackled my projects. The boys tried to help but no, no, that wasn't going to do. So anyway, here is a picture of the final products. I will say the joints in my legs kill, sitting on the floor that long is painful,bohoo. And bonus points for those that figure out what is not correct on Parker's scouting uniform or go down and I'll reveal my errors. And again sorry I don't know how to format pictures better.

Ok, so clearly I cheated and used fabric glue, wow, it was so easy and I don't even know how to sew on a button, sooo... great for me. Kelly Harp and Rachel Sparks are gasping :). Anyhoo, ok so for all you scouting novices out there. I accidentely bought the bear gold slide for the neckerchief how often do you use that word? instead of the wolf slide and parker is a wolf so that will have to be switched out. And then secondly his pack number is acutally 119 but they ran out of 9s at the store, so he'll just have to join pack 11 until that comes in. And just so you know, I had to google how to tie that neckerchief and google where all those things go. because Parker already misplaced his wolfguide. Ok well, that is enough for me today, you got two posts, and I am tired and off to bed. After I unstick my fingers and apply some bengay to the ole joints.

Yoda and Syrup

So I already wrote about how my boys are into all things StarWars, well I indulged their obsession while on my trip to STL and came home with $20 StarWars pancake molds. We eat homeade Papa Sam pancakes courtesy of Ritchey every Saturday morning, so I knew these would get a weekly use. And the boys were so excited. So here is the final product.  Unfortunately Ritchey and I aren't Jedi's so it was a painful process, and even could have ended our marriage. Lots of tries, lots of Pam and some power struggles who me? But we pulled together, and got it done. And of course they lasted all of 3 minutes but the boys were so excited and its all about making memories.

Darth Vader's mouth looks all jacked up, that oxygen grill really is hard to achieve with pancake batter. And one version of him was really a mess, but we reminded them how nasty Darth's face looked under his mask, and that is what the pancake was supposed to look like. They totally bought it. There is a storm trooper too, but we still need to work on that guy.

My sophie.

Thought I'd post some pics. I just spent some nice time reading and drinking coffee while my kids watched their 4-4:30 show. I went to check on them and could smell right away that sophie was no longer watching quietly. No it was not a poop smell, and very nice baby smell, that of Desitin... everywhere. At first I picked her up to throw her in the tub, but then realized how greasy desitin is and didn't think water would help. So I plopped her back down at the scene of the crime, ya know, to get a good picture, wonderful me. Then thankfully wet wipes did the trick and she and her room smell so baby clean now. I guess it could have been a lot worse, it could have been poo everywhere. My mom likes to share a story how my sister and I spread vaseline all over a blue shag carpet, and then sprinklied baby powder all over it, yikes! Anyhoo, here are the pics, and just a few bedhead pics of Sophie just so you can love her as much as I do.

I'm back!

I am back from my trip home. So many great times, and discussions and so many emotions. I call it my trip home because yes, it is where I grew up, but I no longer have any family there, but the friends I have there are really my family, even though we have been apart for 5 years. And the overwhelming emotion I felt over the weekend was that STL really is my home. Which is kinda weird because I didn't really feel that way last time I lived there. But upon returning it just felt so good and so right to be there. And the funny thing is, I'll probably never live there again. That was another wierd emotion I had there. Its like I belong there and even still live life there, like I'm just on a long trip away, but I most likely will never live in STL again or around these women. I immediately picked up where I left off with old friends, like we had never left. Some I have seen, some I have not, one friend even lives in Singapore and happened to be in town while I was there, we were highschool and newlywed friends. We all stayed up late at night, visitig, sharing, crying, praying, laughing a lot, and one night getting our groove on!. It was weird. It was like I had been transported back to my "cool years". You know those years you don't have many responsibilities and definitely no kids. And actually this group of friends were a part of the cool years and then we all had babies together and became "cool" moms together. And sitting around the patio one night we shared what was going on in life, the highs, lows, and what's next. Lots of heartache shared, deaths, divorces, child issues, family issues, job woes. We were so introspective how in 10 short years so much can change. Now granted going from newlywed to career and 3 kid homes, is a huge difference, but I wonder if in the next 10 years we will see such drastic changes and movements by God, are the 20s just a crazy time, or does each decade do a number on you. I imagine so. Why are these women/families so important to me. We were only together 4 years. That is nothing in the scope of my life. Again, is it that age, we all navigated those crazy years of life together. I dunno. Or will I be blessed every decade with such a core community.

I also got to go back and visit my childhood home and schools. It was wierd. First of all, as you have all experienced, man everything seemed smaller scale. That hill I sled down 100x was like a mole hill. My giantly steep driveway, not so steep. I was a total snoop. I knocked on my old door, but no one was home, so I then preceded to look in almost every window I could. I must say the new owners have changed almost everything, and are into the aztec look, kinda wierd. But I sat and stared at all the familiar things, my bedroom window that I used to sneek out of, the path I walked a million times. It all seemed so familiar but so far way. I don't know what my deal was but my heart was racing and tears welled up in my eyes most of the time. I don't miss childhood, but I miss that connection to my past. As my earlier post mentioned, I don't feel much of a connection. My  mom, sister and I are closer than we have ever been, but there is still a void, my dad, and it is such a large void that it makes going back or thinking back, kind of empty, so I guess we don't do it much or talk about it much, so I guess I just had a flood of emotions going home. I guess thats good.

The reason I got to go home was because my close friend was throwing a huge bash for her 10th anniversary, it was so much fun, footloose and fancy free, but for her and almost everyone at the party, and odd time of reflection and joyful remembrance. So here's to the 20s, a wonderful life navigating, changing and fun time of life.

oh and if you are wondering how Ritchey and the kids did. Well swimmingly. They never made it to school on time once, ate out a lot, but most importantly had fun together doing things "daddy's way" which is different and much less efficient and rational than my way, but still gets the job done!

ok, so the pic to above is from back in the day, camping with friends pre-kids.

The pic to the right is the week before we left for LA, a going away girls night. So this would be mom's with toddlers.

Here we are hanging out on the patio after a weekend of late nights, pardon our appearance. And just so my friend Kim isn't mortified, she normally is gorgeous but this was after getting like 3 hours of sleep 2 nights in a row. And Rachel is training for a marathon, thus the happening outfit. Me, I'm gorgeous as always!

Oh, I'm normally gorgeous, except for my double chin. Ask me someday and I'll show you my trick to make it disappear for pics (which I'm clearly not doing here. This is what my friend looks like with more sleep, make up and a ravishing 10th anniversary mock wedding dress!

Leavin on a jet plane!

I'm ignoring all my to do lists right now to let you know, I'm leavin on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again! I am getting to take a trip "home" to St. Louis and to escape the realities of motherhood and life here for a while. A friend knew I was in need of a pick me up and time away and is whisking me away to come visit her and attend her fabulous anniversary bash. I miss St. Louis, it has been at least 3 years since we've been back. Its weird having no family roots there anymore, its like my childhood kind of vanished. Sometimes I wonder if my 808 Bridlebrook Life was real. With my father gone, and my sister, mom and I spread all over, and with my crazy life with the kids, it feels like that life was a distant dream. So I can't wait to go back and drive around and visit my old home and neighborhood. Ritchey says I should knock on the door and see if they'll let me come in a look around. We'll see. I also had the privilege to return to St. Louis for seminary years and build a whole other life there that has become a bedrock to me and my whole family.We built friendships during those short 4 years that will last forever. So I'll stomp around good ole Maplewood for a while too. I"m gone 4 days and 5 nights! That may be the longest I've been away from my kids, but Ritchey assured me to go and go for as long as I can. I"m not worried about Ritchey, he is a pro dad, way more patient than I ever am, and way more laid back than I am. And he has no qualms about eating out 3 times a day no matter how many meals I leave behind. But lucky for him he has angel parents who are going to come and help out during the weekend. I will miss my kids terribly and my wonderful hubby, but one great thing about getaways is that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I will come back a more patient and loving woman, that will last at least the 1st couple days back :) Anyhoo, so goodbye for now, I'm off to spend hours on end in good conversation, evenings out, soaking up old memories and enjoying the cooler weather. I'll give a full report when I get back and will post proof of life that my family survived without me.