E is for Easter...and ER

i have decided to stop making plans. because they never turn out. seriously, anything from grocery shopping to when i'm gonna work out to birthday parties to holiday celebrations. plans down the drain. it always works out and ends up being ok, but just not the way i planned it.

take this weekend, for example. i planned to have a nice easter lunch with our family and jason's family, followed by a fun easter egg hunt for the kids. we would all be dressed up in our cute spring clothes to get some nice family pictures before church. we'd go to church as a family (for the first time in forever....) and have a sweet conversation with hiba about what easter means.

but in reality, matthias spiked a fever on saturday night. i figured it was mostly just teething and he's sleep it off. but then he woke up at 6 a.m. on sunday morning and still had a fever of 102*, which meant no church for us. and no family pictures.

hiba looked adorable when she went to church. but of course i didn't get any pictures because matthias was glued to me and melted down if i let go of him. there's always next week, right?

and in reality, when i went to wal-mart on saturday to get easter candy and eggs, i was so overwhelmed and disgusted by all the crap they were selling in the name of easter that i couldn't bring myself to buy any of it. we had a few eggs at home already from various other activities, so i figured i'd use those.

we did have a nice easter lunch. liz and tom (jason's younger sibblings) spent the night with us on saturday and spent sunday morning/afternoon with us. their mom is out of town, visiting her brother in florida. i roasted a chicken (and did a pretty dang good job, if i do say so myself). it was a great meal. but - still no pictures, because i was distracted by matthias's morose self and furnace-like body.

so, we put the kids down for a nap, and i figured we'd do an egg hunt/really-great-spiritual-conversation with hiba when they got up.

but in reality, matthias woke up still burning up, coughing like a seal, and not catching his breath (i feel like we've been through this once or twice before.....). so, i scooped him up and took him to children's. turns out, he's fine, but i'm still glad i took him. they checked his ears and throat to rule out ear infections/strep, which means i didn't have to waste my time at the doctor this morning to hear he has croup. which i already knew, based on his coughing. so, they gave him a steroid dose and sent us home. which meant at least we didn't have to go back in the middle of the night.

so at the hospital, i finally got my easter pictures. only instead of being of our family, they're of just matthias. and instead of being all dressed up, he looks pretty dang cute in his pjs.

C is for chaos

whew! what a weekend. i want to start out by saying that i know my particular situation is not nearly as bad as a lot of people's around here and in the surrounding states. i have friends who still don't have power and others who have a tree on their house. i know a lot of people lost family and friends because of these storms and i am thankful that we are safe and our house is fine. but - i also think that just because my life isn't as crazy and bad as other peoples' lives, doesn't mean that mine isn't crazy. and it was definitely a crazy weekend.

it all started thursday night. or friday morning, technically. the tornado sirens woke me up and since i am terrified of tornados, i jumped out of bed to turn on the tv. only we didn't have any power. so in my still half-way asleep state, i tried the internet. but apparently our modem take power to use. so i grabbed my phone. i have a data phone, but it is so far from a smart phone. so i can access the internet, but no streaming video or anything like that. i finally found a radar on one of the local news websites, but it was about 10 minutes behind, which doesn't really help anything.

so i'm sitting in bed, tornado sirens blaring, hail hitting our window, no power, wondering if i should wake everyone up and cram into a closet. see, in siloam (where i grew up), if the sirens went off, you take cover. here, they go off all the time during storms and as far as i know, since we've lived in this house, there hasn't been a tornado spotted in our direct area. so i decided not to wake everyone up, and just laid there hoping that we didn't blow away.

we didn't. we're all fine. but when we woke up, the power was still off. bummer. so the kids and i came up with something for breakfast and headed over to a friend's house for the morning. on a normal day, this would be fine. but my plan for friday was to clean the house, shop for hiba's birthday party, make a great dinner and be ready for my mom, dad, and sister to come visit. yeah...that didn't happen.

after the morning at leigh ann's (who graciously watched my kids while i at least did the shopping for the birthday party), we went back home for nap time. i laid on the couch and kept thinking that any minute, the power would come back on and we'd be back on track. by about 4 p.m., i decided i needed to come up with a plan b.

jason's parents graciously offered their house to us. so i threw some things in an overnight bag, grabbed the air mattress, called my sister and parents, and headed over. it was our family of four, jason's mom and dad, two younger sibs, his brother brad and sister-in-law katy, my parents, my sister, and my sister's new boyfriendish guy (couldn't ever get a straight answer on that one. but poor guys - if he sticks with her after this introduction to her family, he's a keeper.). it was a little bit of a full house.

jason's family is great. they have a pretty big house and his mom loves having people over. but being there did mean that i was at someone else's house, not in my own space, and me and my plans were at the mercy of an electric company and not in charge of what happens (that's a tough thing for me...). and all of the plans i had in my head for how friday and saturday were going to go were quickly crumbling. plan b turned into plan c, which changed to plan d and so on.

but, at the end of the day, it was fine. we have a house. we had a place to stay. we had a place for my family to stay. we had a fridge to put all of our freshly bought groceries in. hiba had a great time being surrounded by people who love her. we had balloons and dora decorations. and even though we didn't have a schedule, a plan, an event, control - hiba still had a wonderful birthday that i'm sure she will remember fondly

B is for Bahamas!

in a few short weeks (well, actually more like seven), my best friend and i will be laying on the beach, sipping on mohitos, soaking up the sun, eating to our hearts content with no kids and no husbands. a four night, five day trip of pure bliss, rest, laughing, talking, relaxing in the bahamas.

i can't wait. christa and i are celebrating our 20 year anniversary of being best friends this summer. we pretty much clicked right away, from the moment i saved her from being beaten over the head with a folding chair by my little brother. i don't know many people my age who have had a best friend for twenty years. i feel very lucky. we've had our fair share of ups and downs, but through the years we've stuck together. so we're celebrating.

we found an amazing deal on living social and our wonderful husbands made it work. so on may 29, i'll be here.

today, i started operation: bahamas. i've never really took the time to lose the baby weight from matthias (or the left over from hiba....) so i think now is the time. i don't think i'm super huge or anything, but i could definitely stand to shed a little. plus i'm hoping that if i stick to this for the next seven weeks, it will actually just be part of my lifestyle. i do need the reward at the end, but i think i'll keep going when i get back. really i'll have to, since all of our yummy food is included in our deal. mmmmmmm.

anyway, what does operation: bahamas entail? well, i'm going to work out on a regular basis. four times a week, no excuses. jason is done with rugby for the season, so he'll be home most nights which means that even if the kiddos are sick and i can't take them to the childcare hours, i can go at night. no more bags of chips smothered by bags of cheese (i like to pretend they are nachos) for lunch. fresh fruit for breakfasts every day - i already do this for my kids. veggies at lunch. and no more sonic. i almost decided on no chick-fil-a, but lets not get ridiculous here. we already eat mostly whole wheat and lean protein, so i don't feel like i have to drastically change my diet. just cutting out the super unhealthy things i do on a regular basis and quit coming up with excuses to not work out.

so here we go. it's been my goal since new years to start being more healthy and now i have a short-term goal that will hopefully turn into a long-term habit. but at any rate, in seven weeks i'll be rewarding myself with five days of bliss.

A is for Attitude

i'm realizing lately that life is really all about what sort of attitude i bring to it. even on the worst of days, if i have a more positive outlook, it goes better. easier said than done, though.

today was one of those days. as i lay in bed at 6 a.m., awaked by matthias screaming in his bed (seriously - screaming. not crying, not even really seeming to be that upset. just screaming. nice wake-up call.), i thought this day can go one of two ways. i can wallow in my misery or i can get up and go. my misery really isn't that bad. we're over all of our sicknesses, the weather is beautiful, we have all day to do whatever we want, but jason is gone for the weekend to play rugby so i'm on my own. with the kids. at 6 a.m.

as i got up, fumbled around to turn on sesame street, and laid back down on the couch hoping to sleep for a little while longer, i thought "i'm just gonna have a good attitude about today". the day started way to early, which meant tired and cranky kids were in my near future, but the sun was shining (well, it was going to shine later in the day, at the more appropriate hour to be getting out of bed...), the breeze was blowing, so we would get up and go.

and we did. and it was great. the kids watched a little tv while i rested on the couch. we had breakfast, got dressed, and headed out to the zoo. it was a beautiful day, hiba was well behaved, matthias loved the animals, they got to play on the playground, and i wasn't stuck at home with them all day.

we came home and i promised them ice cream after lunch if they ate a good lunch. they both did. that matthias fellow is a lot smarter than he sometimes lets on. lately, he's been eating about half his food and then dumping the rest on the ground. not today. he ate every bite and then asked for ice cream. which i gladly gave to him, but now i know that he knows what's happening.

so now they are napping, both worn out from the morning, i'm enjoying sitting on the couch, basking in the sun, and thinking of what fun things we'll do this afternoon. i'm debating between the library (which never really ends well) or going to see the ducks at the peabody. or maybe a picnic at the park for dinner. we'll see.

the point is, i wish i would do this every day. it's not as hard as it seems in my head to just get up and go instead of sitting around, wishing hiba would stop hitting matthias and that matthias would stop throwing everything he picks up. it really is a matter of attitude. which is good, because it gives me the opportunity to control my day, but it also means that when we have bad days of staying home and fighting all day i am probably mostly to blame. obviously we will have sick days or tired days or days where we just need to stay put. and those days will probably be filled with fighting and time-outs. but on days where getting up and going is an option, i want to do it with a good attitude. the day just goes so much better. i hope i remember today for a while. because maybe it will help me to do it again tomorrow.

totally worth it

as tired as i am of spending most of my time at home with my kiddos, they are pretty great. sometimes i have to remind myself of that, and sometimes, they remind me.

they are goofy.

they are gorgeous.

they're growing - fast.

and they love each other. and have so much fun together. and are totally worth it.

blech

i am so ready to not have sickness invading our house. i would say we are on the upswing, but i've said that before in the last three weeks and as soon as i say it, another round hits - so who knows.

it all started about three weeks ago. hiba and matthias both had a horrible sounding cough (matthias more than hiba). it sounded like croup, but it never got to where they lost their breath or anything. i finally ended up taking matthias to the doctor about a week later, because it wouldn't go away and he was having trouble sleeping. so he got some meds and allergy medicine and i thought "yay, this will help and everything will be fine soon!".

well, then i caught it. whatever it is. a nice combination of a cold, allergies, sinus problems, and a slight fever here or there. i am not a nice sick person. i like to lay in bed, drink sprite, eat hot and sour soup, and not take care of two crazy kids. but, i did not get to do that. i had to suck it up and go on as if life was just dandy.

i think there were a few days in the last few weeks when most of us were mostly well. but it just keeps getting passed around. hiba's fine, but matthias is sick. matthias is fine, but hiba is sick. they are both fine (and bouncing off the walls), but i am sick. bleh. not fun.

on thursday (well technically friday), hiba woke up about 4:45 a.m. and complained that her ear hurt. she didn't go back to bed. that was a fun day. so now she is on antibiotics for that, which will also hopefully clear up some of the nastiness in her throat. we'll see.

and when we got back from the doctor on friday afternoon, i pointed out to jason that matthias was wearing different clothes than when he went down for nap. jason answered "that's because there was an enormous amount of vomit all over his bed when he woke up from nap". fun times. it became apparent that i was in fact a bug, and not just something that he ate.

so now it is monday. we seem to be getting better. matthias hasn't puked in a day, and hiba hasn't started throwing up yet (knock on wood). so i have high hopes for this week. hopes of getting out of the house, playing with other kids, not having horrible headaches all day every from the ridiculous amount of pollen in the air, hopes of my kids sleeping well at night and not waking up from ear aches/coughing/vomit. we will see. i mean, it has to end at some point, right?