background

Friday, February 24, 2012

First Snow of 2012

Finally. After buying everyone snow pants, boots, gloves, etc... in preparation for another snowy winter, we didn't get our first flurry until mid-to-late February. And it was really just a dusting.  But being the cool dad that he is, Matt was out late the night it snowed, rolling up the front yard so the kids would have a snow man in the morning.  I must say we were the envy of the neighborhood the next morning as all the kids were starting to wake up, but most of the snow was already melting.

Snow man

A view down the street

Will and Avery having fun before school

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Dance Lessons

Wow, we're on a dance theme this week!

Will gave us all a dance lesson on Sunday morning before church.  He taught us the "Pocket, rocket, drop it" (I think that is what he calls it) dance move. Evidently he is "poppin' and lockin'" Ha!! I think I like his name for it better.

Here is a step by step guide for those of you interested (excuse the mess of babies and their blankets behind him).

"Pocket"...

"Rocket"....

Drop it....








Here are 2 video demonstrations....


And another funny video from that morning (excuse the mess....our house is always in disarray on Sunday mornings)....



Happy Dancing!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Ballet-ing

A few months ago, Avery started showing an interest in ballet and loves to "ballet" around the house. I started pricing dance classes and discovered that not only can it be really expensive, but there aren't a lot of options for a 2 year old, especially a 2 year old with a working mom. I came across a 4 week program through Parks & Rec called "Princess Ballet" and knew I had found a winner.  I love that it is just 4 weeks instead of a 9 month commitment and we can gauge her interest.

Here she is at the house before we left:



And some pictures before class began. She was SO EXCITED, if you can't tell!






Don't you just love those little behinds at the bar!

What I didn't realize, and what I had purposefully tried to avoid, was that this was a parent-child class.....meaning I got to dance too. Oh yay.  :-)


She had a lot of fun "ballet-ing", as she calls it, but got totally distracted by the HUGE playground that Bubba got to play on during her class. She is already really excited about next week's class, although I think it is because I told her we could bring play clothes and hit the playground after class!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Batter Up!

Thank goodness for NC weather!! Where on earth could you enjoy a baseball game in mid-February in 60 degree, sunmy weather?? Being a huge Wolfpack fans, including the kids, often times missing out on a lot of sporting events because the games are during nap time or start too late in the evening.  The first few baseball games in the season are in mid-afternoon, so doable from a sleep schedule perspective but usually not ideal from a weather perspective. But that was not the case this past Friday when we got to watch the Wolfpack play Marshall (and win!!).




A little poor planning on my part, but we had to sit facing the bright (and warm) afternoon sun. Matt and I tried sharing our hat/shades but then we were miserable, which meant new hats for the kids.
Sporting Matt's hat and my shades

$24 later, we're all happy
 Avery was very "charged" up about watching the Pack!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Day 2012

Happy Valentine’s Day! And 60th Birthday to my dad!!!

I know some people think of this as a Hallmark created holiday, and maybe it is, but I really have a good time celebrating every year. It probably helps that with a family birthday in the mix, there is always a reason to celebrate on this day.

We went to the coast this weekend for that very birthday celebration.  We were able to check my grandmother out of her rehab facility for a few hours and we had celebration for my dad, complete with a yummy Devil’s Food cake with cream cheese icing and strawberries (courtesy of yours truly) and exchanged Valentine’s Day gifts with GG Jane.
Out of all the pics, I can't get a good one of the 3 of them.


Crazy party, huh?!?!

So my top layer was a little smaller than the other two....it still tasted good!

The birthday boy!
Matt and I got out to our favorite restaurant on Saturday night, Amos Mosquito’s. Meanwhile, the children had Valentine’s Celebration #2, this time with my brother.

Sunday morning we woke up to a bitter, cold morning and then celebrated one more time with the gift exchange with my dad. We gave him a new swimsuit, and 2 gift cards.

These few days leading up to Valentine’s Day have been busy getting ready for school activities. Will wrote his name on all his cards and started writing his friends’ names on them, but quickly relinquished that duty to me. He read me the names instead. Suits me fine….went much faster that way!!!
Working on Matt's card....he spent over an hour on it!

Finished product
A card made by Avery


 We also did lots of brownie baking. And I am loving all the leftover scraps from the heart cut outs!!
brownie cookies

Heart shaped brownies for the teachers
Matt surprised us with Chinese take out (ok, that was my idea) and roses for his girls. Avery was beside herself with excitement over her rose.
Matt and Will make hearts with their hands while Avery shows off her rose

Avery's rose

my flowers

Happy Valentine’s day!!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to work I go.....

For the first time ever, I thought I would link up with Kelly for SUYL –Working Moms.  And in true flustered fashion, I have known about this SUYL for what, months now, and have waited until the afternoon of the big day to try and write something.  Something witty and engaging and funny.

Truth of the matter is, when it comes to being a working mom, I don’t find much witty and engaging and funny with it. And then I find everything about it witty and engaging and funny.  I wish with all my heart that I could stay home with my 5 and 2.5 year olds. And then I like working.  I have tons of working mommy guilt that I struggle with but I know my children are very happy and safe and they are learning so much at their school. I just wish it was me teaching them. And then I love my (sort of semi) high-powered career in corporate finance at a Fortune 500 company. I am fortunate enough to love A LOT of the people I work with and even consider a few of them my very best friends and quite frankly couldn’t imagine my life without them.  

I am lucking enough to have a lot of flexibility in my job. I work slightly longer days in exchange for  a few week days off a month. I can work from home when kids are sick. I have a lot of vacation days. I also have a very helpful hubbie who also has some flexibility. Maybe most important, I’ve been blessed with great sleepers so I can get a lot done during naps and at night.  Sure, we live in a constant state of mayhem (hence the name of my blog) but it is a controlled mayhem. I plan menus for the week. I plan everything months in advance.  I order my groceries online and pick them up at the grocery store. I bake A LOT of chicken breasts in advance, cut them up and freeze cup sized servings of them.  And just this past week I discovered the beauty of shredding chicken in a stand mixer. Thanks Pinterest!!!!

On weekends, we turn into any normal suburban American family as we jet around town in our SUV’s, going from soccer to dance to dinner with friends and then church on Sundays. Weekends go by way too fast.

I still find time to do the things I love….shop (probably should find a little less time for that). Craft. Hang with friends. Blog. Especially reading blogs. That sounds much better than “stalking”, right??!? You know, when I think about it, I think I self-inflict a ton of guilt on myself getting caught up in the lives of SAHM’s, via their blog of course.  It is almost like I didn’t know what I was missing until I discovered blogs a few years back.  In real life, not surprising, most of my friends are also working moms. But we lunch. And we email. And complain about how we had more time to see each other.

Both sides of the coin are WORK. Real work. As another poster wrote, I also cherish the free time I have in my car or even at my desk at work.  SAHM’s don’t have a ton of that.  I hate that my time during the week with my children is so limited, which is why I am pretty stingy with them on the weekends. 

I know I have it good. I mean GREAT. I know I am very fortunate to be in my position in so many, many, many ways. That is something I thank God for every night.  And working allows me to give my children experiences they would otherwise miss out on. Experiences I am not ready to knowingly let them miss out on if I stayed home right now.

I am proud to say it is by choice that I work.   I am not afraid to admit though that I wish I didn’t have to.  So while it is by choice that I work now, I hope sometime in the not so distant future, it is by choice that I stay home. And be a overzealous parent volunteer. And have a minivan.  And a white picket fence. Just kidding….who has time to paint it every year! Neither kind of mom, that's who!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Daddy Daughter Date Night

A beautiful princess in my house had a darling date with her Prince Charming this week. Chick-fil-a sponsored a “Daddy-Daughter” date night.  Good ol’ “Christian Chicken” did this back in the fall for Mother/Son combos. They do a lot of things like this. It is great because is forces upon us some situations that we normally may let go by the wayside. Ironically, the day before I saw the advertisement for this, I had been thinking that Matt and Avery don’t spend a lot of one on one time together and that was something we needed to work on.

Avery, ever the fashionista, needs to think that all clothing choices are her ideas.  Like when I lay out her clothes in the morning, I know she won’t wear what I lay out on her dresser, so I put what I want her to wear in her drawer, but on the top of the other items, so she will pick that outfit! Likewise, if I know something special is coming up and I want her to wear something particular, I have to start talking it up days beforehand. I started talking up her big date with Dad last week, thinking she would just wear one of her dresses in her closet. But all on her own, she decided she wanted to wear one of her very fancy dresses. So of course I let her. I seriously contemplated curling her hair and putting makeup on her!!

Dad arrived to pick her up and away they went!



There was a flower involved before the night was over as well as a neat booklet and a packet of seeds.  She and Matt will plant those together this spring.


So while Matt and Avery were away, Will and I did a little Valentine’s Day gift shopping  and grabbed a bite to eat at the local Italian place. Here he is concentrating on a word search on his place mat.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Krispy Kreme Challenge - 2012

What an honor for my 100th blog post. EVAH. Raleigh's very own Krispy Kreme Challenge!!!  And one of the participants this year was none other than Matt!!!

For those new to the event, runners participate in a 5 mile race, only about mid-way through, you have to stop and and eat a dozen of the legendary Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Seriously.

Matt has always wanted to do this so I am super proud of him for training this year and running.  He has been running at night but passed on trotting up to the Dunkin' Donuts down the street as part of his training for fear that one bad experience might turn him off.

He left early that morning and after a whirlwind breakfast, Mom, who was up taking a break from caregiver to my g-ma, and I managed to get the kids out the door early and away we went. I had scoped out some potential places to park on the interweb and it actually worked out perfectly.  I couldn't have asked for a better parking space or place to watch the race from.
waiting for the race to start
We were a few blocks away from the starting line. It was AMAZING how many runners there were. Over 7700!!!!!!  And a lot of people "dress up" for the race. Next year Matt is totally dressing up. He is at least wearing something other than gray because he was so hard to pick out. Thankfully I was able to see him coming and going.
Here they come!
We were sitting there, watching the thousands of runners go by. The children were especially enthralled because there were a ton of characters that they could identify. And then there was this one man. I don't think I saw him at first but all of a sudden Avery starts exclaiming, "There is Jesus! There is Jesus! Jesus is running in the race, Mommy"!!! Sure, enough, there was a Jesus running in the race.

Matt was running behind Jesus at one point, although he didn't know there was a Jesus in the race. But he kept hearing all these people yelling about Jesus and he was totally confused.
Matt tries to avoid the crowds by running on the sidewalk
Gray and Greta were waiting near Krispy Kreme for moral support. And water!!!
Greta snapped this one. He's almost done!
As I said, we were in a really great place to watch the start of the race.......because Mr. and Mrs. Wuf hung out there too! I love these pics because it has the iconic Hillsborough St. IHOP in the background. I also love these pics because this was the first time Avery wasn't scared of them!


Go Pack!!
After the runners headed off in pursuit of doughnuts, we headed a few blocks up the street to the Bell Tower, which was the finish line as well. My great college friend, Meg, was there. Her husband and brother were also participating.  We had a great time visiting while waiting for the guys to return.
Waiting for Daddy to cross the finish line

Meg's family shared some of their doughnuts with us.



Here comes Matt!! Yay!!!!  He actually consumed all 12 doughnuts! Not everyone in the face can claim that! Now, I'm not saying that all 12 stayed down.....yuck!!!!

We had a lot of fun hanging out after the race....high stepping over piles of vomit!! Seriously.
Yay Daddy!!

Kappa Sigmas

At the Bell Tower

Future Runner

I get a little nauseous every time I think about it, but it was still loads of fun! To watch of course.