Snow Days...

Last Friday, Taylors, SC shut down. For some ice. Granted, it was very cold that day (think the high topped out around the upper 20's), and little ice pellets fell and accumulated for several hours, but it was hardly the catastrophic event we were expecting. Just like the prior week's snow storm that never happened, we continue to be let down by winter weather events in SC. I'm sure that we'll get one soon enough, and in the mean time I'm grateful that we didn't lose power, no one slipped and fell in the ice, and us being cooped up in the house lead to a day in our PJ's, a delicious batch of J's chili, and some yummy chocolate chip cookies!

Sick Days...

The little people were sick, and stayed home most of last week. Johnny always seems to be the catalyst for our family illnesses, with Mikey and I catching whatever fine specimen he has a few days later. Josh typically catches it last, and holds on to it the longest, but this time he seems to have been spared the pleasure. All the talk of this season's flu epidemic has me grateful that we only had to deal with low fevers and cold symptoms.

A weekend in January...

52 Weeks - Week 2

So, here is a recap of last week, and my efforts at doing the following one a weekly basis over the course of 2013:

1. Ancestral Eating: Josh and I ate 21 meals last week, and of those 21 meals, 4 were NOT primal/paleo. So, we hit the 80/20 mark, but ideally since I would like to lose about 50 pounds before embarking on the baby # 3 adventure, we should be maybe having 1 non-paleo/primal meal a week. Here are some shots of what we nommed on over the last week:

And also, I made the mistake of taking pictures with instagram, which isn't letting me repost them to my blog. Grrrr. I may need to also add a daily WOD to this 52 week challenge, lol, because I'm not sure that just eating like a cave man is going to make the grade by the time I hope to once again be with child.

2. Home Improvement: What can I say? I didn't do much. I DID, however, pack up all the Christmas Decor and have J and Papa put everything back up in the attic. Score! I'm going to say it counts for this week :) This week i'm hoping to flex my DIY skills and paint a curio cabinet... and then maybe hang a picture on the wall, lol. We'll see!

3. Bible study: I've been rockin' this every  night. The Bible Study plan I've been on kind of jumps around a lot, and the beginning is heavy on Genesis (I guess that makes sense). What I'm really loving more than anything is the Jesus Storybook Bible that I read to Mikey most nights. It has been to amazing to read these stories told in a way to speak to the heart of a child. The book makes God and Jesus seem like a super hero, and Mikey really gets into it. This last week we learned about Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Cain and Abel, Moses, and Joshua. Mikey loves that he recognizes so many of the names from family members, although I have had to explain to him that, "No, your Aunt Sarah is not 90, and was not married to Abraham. Sorry. Yes, I'm sure." Lol.

Today I started Week 3 of 52 weeks, and I'm thinking these weekly blog posts are definitely going to help keep me focused!

In between stuff...

The boys have been having trouble sleeping through the night lately. Sometimes a towel left carelessly hanging from a doorknob will too closely resemble an angry ghost. Sometimes it is just a bad dream that pulls me from my slumber into Mikey's room at night. For Johnny, it is typically a cough that causes him to become separated from the almighty "b" - aka, binky, that causes him to cry out in the night. Last night it was a blood curdling shriek that had J and I running to our littlest ones room. Johnny was clearly upset - and was firmly telling J "no" at his attempts to comfort him, and asking instead for me. Who else? I suppose sometimes only my neck will do.

With Mikey we can talk through the bad dreams, or swat down the scary towels that look like ghosts. But Johnny doesn't exactly have the same vocabulary Mikey did at this age. I can ask him if he had a bad dream,  and he will usually say yes, but that is about as far as our conversation goes. So I lay him back down, re-binky him, snuggle sheep back into the crook of his arm, and cover him with his blanket. I stroke his hair, and tell him everything is ok, and to go back to sleep. Mostly he does.

These interrupted nights can lead to some depressed mornings. I always know it isn't going to be good news if Mikey is insisting that he is sick and doesn't want to go to school. He usually is jumping out of bed on Monday morning, excited to see his friends again. But by Tuesday, the resistance is starting to build. By Friday morning, it takes some serious convincing to get him out of bed and into his school clothes.

Maybe it is just this week, but after school hasn't been much fun at all, either. This week has been full of crankiness, hitting, yelling and just not listening. Last night, G-Ma came by for a little bit, and that helped. They snuggled her while I cooked dinner.

All that snuggling calmed them down, and bath time was full of pleasant sweetness.

Even though the evening ended well for the boys, Mikey was still begging not to go to school this morning. I promised him that the weekend would be here soon. That we could snuggle for hours tomorrow. J and I took turns snuggling him this morning to just make him feel better. It wasn't really enough. I'm now trying to figure out it would be possible for me to home school and work at home. Am I crazy? Maybe. I likely would end up putting a lot of hours in at night, but what Mom doesn't? I don't know, just a lot to consider, but it is getting harder and harder to push the boys out the door in the morning.

52 Weeks: Week 1

I'll just say upfront that I was NOT on my game lastweek. It was the first week of the year. My camera wasn't even charged. Seriously, didn't even take a picture of Mikey on his 4th birthday. I'm going to need to remedy that. But anyway, I thought I might tell you a little bit more about what we are doing to make our 52 weeks series a success.

1) 52 Weeks of Ancestral Eating/Living: J and I have long known that eating like cavemen is pretty much the best medicine for our damaged and out of shape bodies for some time now. But knowledge and practice are obviously different, and we have NOT been practicing. Sometimes if one person is on board enough, they can drag someone else down a healthier path with them. I just don't think either J or I had it in us the last few months. Anyway, I just kind of woke up on Monday morning ready. Ready like I was over a month ago to just be done with artificial sweeteners (aka, diet soda, energy drinks, etc). Except yesterday I woke up ready to just be done with crappy food (aka, grains - even whole ones, and other carbs) and ready to embrace animal protein, animal fat, and plenty of produce. Every week I'll post pictures of our meals from over the week prior, and maybe some snap shots from my walks (hey, did you know that cavemen had to walk everywhere?). This week I'll just post some links for anyone interested in learning more about ancestral eating (ie, paleo, primal, atkins, etc).

The Paleo Diet
The Primal Blueprint

2) 52 Weeks of Home Improvement: This is meant to keep me focused on improving the house. I have a long track record of moving into a place, and never painting walls, obtaining furniture, hanging pictures, or photographs. In fact, if you broke into our home, you would have trouble figuring out who we are, which is just silly. I'm committing to 52 acts of love on this house, with a focus on decorating (but it might not always be that). In the works for this week are putting the Christmas stuff away, finishing moving the boys clothing into their new dressers (and out of plastic drawers) and maybe ordering some 8x10 prints and framing them/hanging them in the stairwell or hallway outside the dining room. That might be a bit ambitious for one week, but we'll see.

3) 52 Weeks of Bible Study: I've had such a desire in my heart to learn more about Christ, and read my bible! My sweet sister in law, Sarah, showed me a great app called YouVersion, which puts a copy of the bible right on your phone/tablet, and sends you scripture daily. Plus, you can sign up for bible reading plans, which is exactly what I did! I'm currently doing the year long plan to finish the bible in one year, put together by the Christ Church of the Valley. Totally stoked! In addition to that, I've been reading Mikey The Jesus Storybook Bible at night before bed. I'm kind of embarassed to admit how much I'm learning from that book but simultaneously appreciate the approach the book takes, and so grateful to our neighbor for bringing Mikey a copy for his birthday (along with some great Christian children's CD's). What I would like to do is just write about what I'm learning - maybe the pieces that stick out to me or apply to my life. I would also like to obtain a Study Bible, but so far haven't been able to find one that is very affordable. I'll keep looking! Lastly, we still really need to find a church home. I'll admit that I'm nervous about going some place where we don't know anyone, and I just need to get over it and drag J with me to one that I've been interested in for awhile. I'm making myself promise to do it this Sunday, so hopefully G-Ma is available to watch the kiddos for our first visit (and if we like it, of course I'd like to bring the babies with us on a weekly basis).

So there it is - the 52 weeks flushed out. Sorry the 1st week was sort of boring, but week two should be much more exciting, with pictures and everything :)

52 Weeks...

Everyone is signing up for these crazy 365 day challenges. I know myself well enough to know that I couldn't do something every day for a whole year and post about it here. BUT, I thought I could probably do something once a week for 52 weeks. In fact, I could probably trick myself into doing something 52 times and posting it here on the blog about more than one thing. So, without further ado, here are my x52 things:

1) 52 Weeks of Ancestral Eating
2) 52 Weeks of Home Improvement
3) 52 Weeks of Bible Study

Should be fun - and keep the blog on task :)

Hello, Two Thousand Thirteen!

Try to ignore the previous blog post. I'm still annoyed by a lot of what has become of the blogging world, but I can't get over this nagging feeling that one day my blog will connect the dots between all the photos I take every day. Plus, I feel like we (Me, J & the Boys) are on the verge of some super rad things. Like maybe we'll make some friends, and find some people with similar interests. Maybe I'll finally decorate the house. We might even find a church we love. I want to write about all that, not just stick photos in an album!

So I guess I'm not really disappearing after all, but almost quitting made me realize what I really wanted this place to be all along - a place that lets me connect the dots. A place where our littles can come back time and time again to read about their parents, their parents friends, the home they grew up in, and most importantly, them, and all the sweet little quirks and great times (and maybe not so great times) they will have as we raise them up as best we can.

I can't quit that.

Here is to 2013, and lots and lots of memories to be made and captured!