Project Life Week 3

I love how easy the Project Life app makes this process for me.

Jayden doesn't let me get many pictures of her anymore.  After all, she is 12.  She's an amazing girl though.  :)

Aaliyah doesn't yell at me when I take her picture...yet.  And Ryan is always down to take a pic as long as he can make a crazy face.  Once a knucklehead always a knucklehead.

Around here...

I found this picture today on Brand's phone.  I love it.

All of the kids are sick.  I was at the pediatrician for Aaliyah on Monday and then all the kids on Friday.  It's not strep or the flu...just viral.  But it has everybody pretty grouchy.

Aaliyah was finally her happy self today.  I can usually console her when she's not happy.  A boob is always my saving grace, but not even that was helping.  Poor skooch.

Ryan also fell on the ice this week and hit his head on the pavement.  I'm pretty sure he gave himself a concussion.

Never a dull moment!  That's life I guess.

Project Life Week 2

I totally love the Project Life App.

I have great ambitions of paper scrapbooking, but being able to lay in bed while nursing and making these pages is more my style right now.

Five on Friday

1.   On Wednesday, Aaliyah turned 6 months old!  She's now rolling and skooching all over.  She can't quite crawl, but she's trying.  She growls when she's mad.  She's a very easy baby.

2.  Since she was born, we have co-slept.  I did it with Jayden and Ryan, too.  It's much easier to nurse in the middle of the night.  I've never worried about rolling onto her.  She's still nursing at least once a night, but at this point, I'm pretty sure it's more of a comfort thing.  I'm trying to transition her to the crib.  For now, she'll play in there in the morning after I've changed her diaper and for other short bursts.  She has taken a few catnaps, too, but she screams her head off at night.  We're working on it...

3.  These two are looking very teenagerish lately.  I told them I wanted a picture of them together, and this was the result.

4.  Ryan has been obsessed with scooters.  He had an old one from years ago, but it got tossed in the move.  He just ordered a new one and it finally came on Wednesday.  He's been dying to ride it, but with the arctic weather the past few days, he's being forced to wait.

5.  Snow day today!  I didn't have to work outside the house today, so I kept the baby home from daycare and we had a lazy day.  Ryan has been my sidekick lately.  We hung out and didn't do too much of anything.

Brrrr....

It is frigid around these parts today.

I was on my way to a job down in Stamford and discovered that my windshield wiper fluid would not come out.  I think it's frozen.  I was forced to drive while looking out a very dirty windshield.  No bueno, man.

I stopped at Panera on the way home.  Brand is at an overnight work conference, so the kids and I had bagels for dinner.  With Brand, it's not dinner unless there's meat.  Such a carnivore.  The asiago cheese bagels are my fave!  I gave Aaliyah a little piece, and she kept grunting at me for more.

We had a FaceTime with daddy.  Love that technology.

I want to eat her face!

"Mom, pose like an alien." 

Um, okay...

Project Life Week 1

One week down.

It will be so fun to have an album of these printed out at the end of the year.

I like the idea of scrapbooking with actual paper and stickers.  As a matter of fact, I have thousands of dollars' worth of untouched supplies because...well, I'm a hoarder.

The cool thing is that you can make a hybrid album, half digital and half paper.

I love this!

Happy New Year!

2014 was an amazing year for our family!!!

Topping the list of awesome is obviously the birth of our sweet baby girl, Aaliyah Kendall.  It's been six months since she was born, and I still stare at her in wonder every single day.

We moved into a house that finally feels like home to me.

Both Brand and Ryan got glasses and joined the four-eye crew.

Early in the year I traveled to Newton, Kansas to attend Whatever Craft Weekend, which was a surreal and awesome experience.  I had been following Meg's blog for years, so to meet her in person and stay in that house was so much fun.  I don't know if I would have been brave enough to go by myself, so a weekend away with my BFF was icing on the cake.

I turned 32 this year.  I finally feel like a grown-up.  Who knew it would take so long!  I stupidly requested to go to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday dinner, where I was forced to act like an idiot.  :)

Here are just a few of my favorite shots of this past year.

In 2015...

I'm going to wipe the cobwebs off this old blog and put it to use.  It's so fun to look back on old posts.  I'm totally pissed at myself for letting it fall to the wayside.

Also, I've been saying for years that I would do Project Life.  I bought all the stuff for it years ago, but it's still sitting in the box.  Shocking, I know.  There is a Project Life app now, which will make doing it so much easier.  We'll see if I can stick to it.

Here's to a fresh start!!!

Right now...

Right now I'm breastfeeding a baby for what seems like 18 hours a day.

Right now I'm worrying about how the heck I'm going to be able to continue breastfeeding when I go back to work.

Right now I'm loving how much Ryan loves on Aaliyah.

Right now I'm dreading school starting again.

Right now I'm loving that Aaliyah loves the swing.

Right now I'm trying to get back to "real life," but it's so hard.

Right now I'm thankful for three healthy kids.

Right now I'm wishing I didn't have to go back to work…ever.

Right now I'm loving all the things that come with a new baby…her smell, the noises she makes, kissing her little lips, the way she wraps her fingers around my finger when she's eating, the way she sleeps on her hands, and on and on and on.

Right now I'm grateful that I have a husband who loves our kids the exact same way I do and who is a great teammate.

Right now I'm hoping I can smoothly navigate pre-teen-ness.

Right now I'm wishing Aaliyah would just learn to like a pacifier and not just my boobs!

Right now I'm really, really happy.

:)

Content

At 2:00 in the morning, I started having a coughing fit and it woke me up.  Brand was laying in bed next to me watching TV, and we ended up staying awake until 4:30 chit-chatting.

We talked about a myriad of subjects, but we inevitably (as we always do) ended up talking about our kids.

Obviously as the years go by, you become concerned about different things.

We've been out of the baby/toddler/preschooler phase for a long time…we'll be back there soon enough!  But I've been thinking a lot lately about what exactly my ultimate role is as a parent and what things are important to me and what things really don't matter.

I think it's important to be able to constructively criticize your kids, to let them know you're proud of them, to be honest with them, to realize that they're not always going to agree with you and that they're going to make mistakes, and to help them have realistic view of the world.

Having realistic expectations was something that took me a long time to learn.  The world is filled with corruption and injustice, and life is not fair.  We all have to deal with it.  I don't want to raise spoiled, entitled brats.  I want to raise responsible, considerate, gracious adults.

Even though there are days that I want to pull my hair out, I'm to a point where I'm really happy.  I am by no means perfect.  I'm still paying for past mistakes and making new ones all the time, but I think I'm doing okay.

Being content is a good place to be.

Word, Abe.