simplifying...continued....

wow.

simplifying is kinda hard.

and is at first, not at all simple. but man. this is going to be GREAT.

however...while going through masses of junk in closets and dressers, the regular house maintenance has been a tad....neglected. so when leo had a massive blowout after lunch i suppose i could have used a whole tub of wipes trying to hold him off for a bath. but i would have still had a dirty kid and then very few wipes. so i changed the diaper, held a dirty, naked baby in one arm, wiped down half the sink with the other...and, well. did this.

can't believe i'm posting this.


but come on. it's funny. and was quite necessary.

speaking of embarrassing. this is how many walmart sacks were above my dryer. seriously.

and this is about how it looks now. ah.....

p>

and now for the worst one. if i didn't have a rocking after picture, no way would i ever post this. but if i can clean THIS, i can clean/organize anything. so can you!

don't judge me.

now get ready.

and the angels sang...

i walk by that closet and stop and stare. i can't believe how happy it makes me. i feel like a rockstar.

gonna end this post with some videos for the grandparents.

1st up, leo.

1) loves green beans apparently.

2) has the biggest mouth ever.

rex can read!!! ok, not really. but he can memorize...not too shabby.

gus trying to be rex....man i love that baby's voice.

who would've thought....

when kevin and i got married, almost 7 years ago...i was the most anti-gun, liberal, NONoutdoorsy, animal hating, 'city girl'[as much as one can be from russellville]...shocking, really, that i managed to snag a complete and total country boy.

when we were dating i nearly died every time he'd hop on a 4-wheeler at his parents' and get up on 2 wheels showing off(though i was impressed...). soooo dangerous, i'd think...my kids will NEVER do that for sure. when we got married i insisted, inSISTED that his guns stay at his parents'. people can lose their eyeballs at their house, not mine.


well, things change. get ready. this one's long...


a good friend of mine has been posting some lately about being a better steward of her home. very neat. when i first read it though i thought..."i do that. this place stays clean. but good for her." then i'd be putting laundry up and notice how. many. clothes. were in the closet...or putting up dishes and notice how much in the cabinets we never used. i don't even want to talk about my hall closets or garage...i've always given myself those as "freebies" because the rest of the house was so clean.

but now...it's bugging me. the extra. we don't NEED. we don't USE. so it's my new mission in life to become a true minimalist...where we have what we need and use and no more. SIMPLIFY.

and it's leaking into other parts of my life. i can't stand how busy things are. ridiculous that to plan a lunch with a friend sometimes you have to go weeks out until you are both free. hate that sometimes i don't feel like i have to spend 15 minutes[a TINY fraction of the day, really] reading my bible in the morning, because i have so much to do. i don't like that when i have something to plan for someone, or a meal to take someone, or whatever...that i stress and stress over forgetting something or someone, because my brain is just. too. full. and let's face it, there wasn't much room in there to start with. SIMPLIFY.

in going through my kids' toys for our garage sale, i'm annoyed at the singing/dancing/remote controlled/so complicated i, a flippin' grown up, can't transform this transformer back to a car/missing pieces because there were too many/missing batteries...UGH. sometimes i just want to go outside with a stick and a ball and let them play with those...or rides bikes all day. or stack wooden blocks. SIMPLIFY.

so.
i'm going through every tiny corner in our house and if we don't use it regularly, it's out. the pile of 'sale' in my room is growing HUGE. leo's room is the only room so far that is completely and totally done, and it feels awesome to know exactly what's in there and where it is.


leo...the simplest of us all, got tired playing on his blanket and rolled into it for a nap this morning. now that's nice and simple.

i have this sign in my living room. i like it more now.


my sister mentioned that a book she'd loaned me had a chapter on simplicity. and wow. it is GOOD. the book is the celebration of discipline. and it's just fueling my fire on this. eccles. 7:30 says "God made man simple; man's complex problems are of his own devising." [this verse isn't in all translations...not sure what's up with that?]
this part of the book REALLY got me.

"when we are tempted to think that what we own is the result of our personal efforts, it takes only a little drought or small accident to show us once again how utterly dependent we are for everything."

wow. so true.
if you're reading this blog...you probably know we spent the past 2.5 years working like crazy to get out of debt. and we do give God the glory for it. but it is easy to sink into a prideful..."well sure God helped, but Lord knows we worked our tails off, and THAT's why we're out of debt" well guess what? it hasn't been as easy peasy, super peaceful to be 'out of debt' as we'd imagined. we still have medical bills that pour in. we don't have extra cash like you'd think. we have even borrowed money...TWICE since april when we finished my student loan. now not from a bank or credit card mind you, but what difference does it make? really?

i'm pretty sure things have continued to be a challenge because we were so proud of ourselves. we're nothing. we only pulled this off because God orchestrated all those extra jobs to work together, so we could have all of them...so all that money could go to our debt. when i thought 2 years ago..."hmm...if only i had a child i could babysit, then i could be home with boys and still make money..." and then my friend called to see if i could watch the girl she'd been watching...did I do that? or when we had $300 left on a credit card...with our goal date sneaking up, and we got a $300 check in the mail the day before. did i do that? or when kevin needed a car...ANY car...and one that he looooved literally drove up right by him at work, and the guy sold it to him for less than we we'd even hoped for....did i do that? or when we had only $4200 left in total debt....and we thought we'd have to pay in taxes, but we got a $4300 return. did i do that?
ok, God, i get it. i did nothing. our motto during those 2.5 years was "work like it all depends on you, pray like it all depends on God". we were trying to be obedient. and God rewarded that with success. period.

all that said. i want things simpler. and i've caught myself lately fantasizing about moving out in the country[not too far, mind you...] and letting the boys play outside, on God forbid, four wheelers...and get ready for it...maybe even a dog. and when they're older go shooting with daddy...maybe with their own guns. oh Lord what's happening to me...and like the country song says, "point our rockin' chairs toward the west"...hang out on the porch in the evenings. no tv. maybe a garden with some veggies i grew. what in the world.

grow up super old with this guy. the tall one. the one who has subtly, slowly...without even meaning to...changed my opinion on so many things that i must've been a total flake to begin with....love him.



(7 years ago....)

mother of a post

oh i love that guy. we have fun. we laugh a lot.
when we fight...it's mostly because we're tired and no matter what we think we're fighting about...it's REALLY about thinking the other one gets more sleep. quite silly:-) so i'm thinking when we consistently get more sleep we might be like a perfect couple or something. because he's cute and he seems to think the same of me.
and we have these little mini's that keep us entertained.

oh watching the brotherly love. so fun.


so i've been working a little harder lately and making sure i'm doing the best i can with what i've been given. i have my crash and burn days for sure...but i feel like i do a decent job most days of mom'n it, being a decent wife, keeping the house up....but i feel like i royally blow it most days on cooking. we watched it's complicated a few weeks ago...cute little movie. meryl streep played the main character, and she owned a bakery. her kids and ex practically worshipped her for her cooking...looked forward to coming home to their favorite meals, etc. totally NOT the point of the movie, but i got to thinking. wow. kev must be so happy to come home from working all day to mac and cheese. or frozen pizza. or worse...what if my boys grow up and marry some dumb ugly girl with no personality just because she's a great cook...man, my mom could never cook like this. score. so i decided to try to be a better cook.

but i hate it. i mean i really, really don't like doing it.
so it's going to take some practice.


one of the things that's really hard for me...and most people who are home all day with kids would agree i bet, that 4pm-5pm is pretty much the armpit of the day. that hour can't go by fast enough. the kids are getting bored, they're cranky because they're getting hungry, the house is extra hot from the sun in the back, i'm trying to pick up the mess of toys that always migrates to the living room/diapers that never got put in the trash/laundry that has been folded on the couch all day[ok, you get the point]...just not the brightest point of the day. add in the task of trying to make a lovely meal without destroying the kitchen i had perfectly cleaned...not my fave.

but i decided to do better.
so....since the kids would be major underfoot if i tried to do it on my own, i let them help. and i was a little proud of myself on this one. rex is ALWAYS wanting to help in the kitchen, and usually it's like..."honey i already added the fake orange powder to the mac and cheese so it's about wrapped up in here..." [insert dejected first born puppy dog face].....so when i jumped in last week to making meals i found ways for them to "help". carrots were the veggie of the night. so i got them each a plate and let them put the carrots in the pot. lame? totally. but they thought they were doing me a massive favor.



then it really got exciting. i gave them each a little measuring cup and would fill and refill it with water, letting them pour it in.

i wish i had caught a little more of rex's face there...but he's beaming. so fun.

anyway. a lot of friends have been sending me simple recipes and we're slowly branching out. [hint hint. keep the simple ideas coming]
and what do you know...i'm not horrible at it. just takes some effort. and since we've been married almost 7 years, about time i tried....

moving on...



a picture to brag on our genius baby.


oh those eyes. love.
we do love to teach our babies to hold their own bottles. useful and super cute.
gus about the same age...
oh his head was so big. glad he grew into that.

rawr. i just spent entirely too long looking for a picture of rex somewhere on this computer holding his own bottle. whatever. trust me...there are some, they are cute, and he was even younger since he got bottles sooner. sorry rex. gus's pictures are more recent and easier to find...













ok i love this picture. this is keepin' it real during gus's nap time. me kicking rex's rear at mario cart. here's why i love this picture.

a)missing 'bacon' on bottom left of picture. we have 3 of these. there is always one laying around somewhere.
b) me using the baby swing as a foot rest
3) look closely...leo had just spit up and missed the cloth. story of our life.
4) look closer...leo has a sticker on his rear. silly rex. ok...whatever, so i put it there. it was funny.

speaking of mr. barfer...he gets way more of these! this was the first 'not in a baby tub' bath. no worries, we went back to the baby tub. ha






this one is particularly funny right now.

a few phrases we hear a lot...
"oh mommy!! i got goo-dea!" [i have a good idea]
"uh-uh-way-uh" [underwear]
"wex not shey-wing" [rex isn't sharing]
"weo's cwying. git it. a bot-oi" [leo's crying...get him a bottle]

funny that in his language rex and leo both start with W. and his own name starts with D when he says it.

wex, dus, and weo.
what a crew....

helpful...and not so helpful. but fun.

helpful first. not all the time of course. but sometimes i find something quite useful for them to do, and they are pretty good at.
this is one of my favorites. i save it for days we really need something different to do...b/c i certainly don't want to overuse it and have this one get old. it's a sweet system. rex stands on the chair with tongs and unloads the laundry piece by piece, and hands it to gus, who tosses it in the dryer. sure, this takes about 10x longer than me doing it myself but...
1) they think this is super fun?
2) i'm not having to do it.
3) it takes them about 10 minutes...usually plenty long enough to distract them from whatever i was trying to distract them from with this ploy. [i.e. throwing balls to unreachable places and begging for them back, wrestling matches that had gone too far, 5th episode in a row of clifford...whatever]





leo's been getting more bottles lately and they looooove to help with this. which is pretty cute. i wish i could accurately type how gus pronounces bottle, b/c it's awesome. something like "boytahl", but cuter than that.



entertaining leo definitely fits in the helpful. not that he's not content to just sit there...because he is mr. happiness. but the boys love to talk in their hilarious little baby voices to him/take him toys/etc. it's awesome. i was letting gus play a game on my phone[i know, i know...supervised! come on..] and he was so sweet to share and show leo;-)

after this he tried to make leo's little fingers push the buttons...




now for the not so helpful, but still amusing. gus is the main star of this topic. shocked? i mentioned the throwing balls out of reach on purpose...it really works for anything. anything odd in this picture?



yeah. that's leo's paci. i didn't even notice it, and later he said all innocently, "mommy wook! ah weo's paci?" as if to say, "wow! check it, mom. who do you think did THAT?"


like any keypoint family, we have a multitide of pens lying around. i try to keep track, but i'm always working on a list of some kind...and they just get left out. this is what 10 minutes of unsupervised gus with a pen[and marker] looks like.
not sure you can tell from that picture exactly how awesome it is.



now for the just fun. rex is always asking to play a game...and mentioned "hide and sink" the other day. he's hilarious playing this game. mostly because he's really bad at it. so i get an awesome hiding spot, wait until he's almost given up...then jump out. i could not get enough of this face when i did it.



he would pretty much hide where i had just hidden every. single. round. and it was just as funny every time.


i'll be so sad when the days of amusing my kids this easily is gone...

well that was lucky

gus slept til 8 this morning. any morning he does that is almost a promise for a good day.


rather than lounging around all morning and trashing our clean house, or being bummed that kevin finally went back to work...we loaded up. ran to the bank then some disappointing garage sales. riding on the gas light we opted to go to kev's store and get gas...and why not, some donuts too. then on to the farmer's market, where we got a good deal on a ton of strawberries. kevin could pretty much live on berries alone, so he was stoked.


then we were just going to go to the park by the market...


when i noticed some kind of festival going on. so we walked around a bit, and there were all kinds of free things to do.

sometimes i look like a total fool in public. trying to rein gus in (often with him screaming 2 year old nonsense that clearly equal major cursing in his language), telling rex to stop touching things and stay closer...while trying to not drop or bump leo into things. but sometimes they hold hands, and stay close to me, and stay quiet and leo just grins at people(well, he usually does that). and we look like we really have it together. and we pulled off the latter today. i love that.

so the festival. apparently the 10th annual inernational something rather...
included this train ride. major hit.





there were several booths set up with free samples of food, candy, little dinky toys...little boy heaven.
also a little station with cool bubble blowers and a bucket of soap. they sat here forEVER blowing bubbles.


add to the easyness[is that a word?] of this lovely saturday...the wee one slept this whole morning away in the carrier. and it was just cool enough this morning for that not to be miserable for both of us. days i go out with him in here, i'm stinking happy he's not on the weight chart. i can't imagine lugging around a chubby baby in this thing.



happy weekend.

great weekend

kevin has had some extra time off this week. we loooooooooooooove having him around. he's just been using vacation before it expires...


started out last saturday eating dinner with my parents then roaming around the "nod". i got a stranger to take this, and it might be my favorite family pic yet...



the next day he and the boys worked in the yard.


then later it was time for the birthday party. 5. wow...i've been a little more sentimental about this one! i keep remembering stuff...."5 years ago today we were in line at the shakira concert!"..."my water broke right NOW 5 years ago!" etc.
that teeny lil 6 pound squirt changed everything!





we love this kid.



we had a bad guy party for the 2nd year in a row. he knows what he likes!











somehow there always ends up being a ridiculously cute picture of rex and his cousin, lucas. i've got big plans of getting pictures of them together on his birthday forever.

good lord. i feel like i'll be snapping their picture at graduation next week or something. stop. growing. so. fast.


memorial day we teamed up with brian and michelle for some hiking. they were brave to invite us. not sure they would have had brian realized he'd be helping me carry gus the bus half the way! it was really fun though. i'm not usually so "outdoorsy", but it was great. we may pick a shorter trail next time though. we went over FOUR MILES with all these guys...



while brian was holding gus he commented that he felt like gus was swaying a lot...and sure enough the goob had FALLEN ASLEEP on his shoulders. amazing!


kev had leo on the way down to the lake, and had worn his camel pack. we stopped for a break and he let rex have a sipped. i told him this was as close as he'd get to know what it's like to nurse a baby. bahaha..you see he liked my joke.


we were so. happy. to reach the lake. i didn't think it'd happen. and it was perfect.




[btw. off topic...my leg looks weird long here. i was sitting next to kevin yesterday...my kevin...my practically 7ft tall kevin. and our legs from hip to knee are the SAME length. that must make me some kind of weird mutation]



with all these boys i guess i can forget shopping as my favorite hobby, and get used to stuff more like this. i think i can.


peace out.