Our Nightly Prayer

We thank God for all of our blessings.

We thank God for this day.

We pray for our house that keeps us safe and warm.

We pray for the food that fills our bellies.

We pray for our toys that are so much fun.

We pray for our health.

We pray for our friends and our family because they bring us so much love.

We pray for God to help us be brave.

We pray for God to help guide us through difficult situations.

We pray for people to be kind.

We pray for there to be peace.

And we pray for people who need help.

Amen.

21 Day Fix

Well, here I am trying yet another weight loss program. From Weight Watchers to Paleo to extreme exercising; I've tried many. But I'm 10 days into my 21 Day Fix and I must say, I'm not miserable and more importantly, I haven't given up.

I heard about the 21 Day Fix from several blogs that I follow and I became intrigued. The more I researched, the more I thought this might be a good fit for me. I liked the idea that it was only 21 days. You can do anything for 21 days. If I hated it, I would be off to have pizza and a Blizzard on day 22. I also liked that the premise was eating real food which is something that is important to me and I want to set that example for my kids. The downside was the exercise. In order for me to be successful, I would need to do a 30 minute at home workout everyday. Remember, I have an aversion to exercise, that "runner's high" everyone talks about doesn't exist for me. But again, I can do anything for 21 days and even if I half assed the workouts it would still be more than I was doing now. And they were at home so I could do them in the playroom while the kids played. Which actually didn't sound like a bad idea. It would get me out of doing yet another Paw Patrol mission.

I shared my research with Mike to see if he wanted to do it with me. I figured it would be easier if we did it together and I knew he wanted to drop some lbs as well. Sympathy pregnancy weight gain...it's a thing! Mike was on board so we started to game plan. Planning is an area where I've failed before. When trying other weight loss programs, I sign up on a whim and usually after a I've had several days of glutinous eating or have gone through my closet and determined nothing fits. WW is my default program. I've signed up more times than I can count and have seen some success, but I couldn't sustain it. I tend to think, oh I can never have a cookie or chips again and then I give up. Who wants to live life like that? I'll just be happy and fat. The 21 days was the real appeal to me. I can have cookies and chips again, just not for 21 days.

Once Mike and I both committed, I went to Amazon and made the purchase. Done. When the product arrived, the first thing I thought was that they had forgotten some of the food containers. Nope, they are just that small. Yikes! Mike was already second guessing this decision. We started reading through the literature to see what was on the food lists and how much we could eat. Once we calculated how many containers we could have each day we felt better. It looked like you got plenty of food. We also committed to no soda, no alcohol and only black coffee. No delicious creamer or half and half.

Now, when to start this 21 Day Fix? Easter was coming up along with Cora's birthday. Our anniversary and E's birthday followed shortly after. Yes, we wanted to enjoy food and adult beverages for these occasions so we wanted to work around those days. We decided to start May 1st which would be right after Cora's birthday and we would end right before our anniversary. But then Mike realized he had his NFL Draft boys' weekend at the beginning of May and wasn't about to participate in that without alcohol. So we decided May 6th was our start date and now here we are, 10 days later and we're still going strong.

Preparation has been key. I've always been pretty good at meal planning but now I'm strict about it. We stock up every Tuesday at Sam's Club so we have plenty of produce and sometimes make an extra run during the week. We do the workouts together with the kids hanging on us and it's turned into a family event. I love to see E get into it and am so proud we are setting good examples for our kids. I love to hear E say, "Exercise is fun!" The workouts do go pretty fast and they are tough. Yes, sometimes I half ass them, especially when it comes to push-ups. But I usually fight my way through. One alteration we did make was that we skip workouts on Sunday and Monday. With my work schedule, sleep is more important to me on those days.

I didn't take full body pictures of myself or measurements before I started the program. I didn't want this to be about weight loss. I wanted it to be about feeling better and creating healthy habits. I already do feel better and my pants aren't quite as tight which is a great feeling. I will weigh myself at the end just to see if I dropped some lbs. I'd be lying if I said it was easy. There's some days when I just want a Diet Coke so bad I can taste it. And on those beautiful spring afternoons we've been having, I'd love nothing more than to have a Sam Adams Porch Rocker while we play in the backyard. But I'm sticking with it and I feel proud of the commitment I've made. We'll see what happens when the 21 days end. Mike and I have already talked about modifying the plan a bit to keep these healthy habits going and if we feel we've gotten too laxed we'll start up again with another 21 Day Fix.  I'm so glad he's doing it with me, it's so much easier. And the lifestyle we're creating for our family is priceless.

My last meal, beer and glazed doughnut
 at 7am after work.

Here we go!

Sweaty workouts.

The kids love yoga!

Cora at 1 Year

Last week Cora turned one. This was one of the fastest years of my life. I feel Cora's first year went a lot faster than E's. Maybe it's because life was busier with two kids instead of just one and I wasn't constantly monitoring milestones. With Cora I was a lot more relaxed and didn't worry as much about doing everything "perfectly". There's something to be said for "second child syndrome".

We celebrated Cora's first birthday pretty low key and simple. On the actual day, April 21st, we headed out to one of our favorite ice cream shops, Adele's. We don't go there too often because it's kind of a drive but it's so good and near Lake Minnetonka so the scenery is great. Unfortunately, it was a rainy cold day so we just sat inside and ate our ice cream and went home.

The following weekend Cora was baptized (this was the rescheduled date since she was sick in January when we originally planned it) and after the service, had family over for lunch, cake and ice cream. The simplicity of Cora's birthday celebration was wonderful. So much less stress than E's parties. I truly enjoyed the day and wasn't worried about getting people fed or introducing different groups of friends and family to each other. Just the grandparents and Auntie and it was perfect!

At Cora's 12 month check-up, she weighed 19.6lbs and was 30 inches long. She isn't walking yet but she crawls everywhere including on the cement driveway. Nothing stops her. She loves being outside and digs in the dirt and sandbox right along with her brother. Mike and I got Cora her own pink and purple dump truck for her birthday so she doesn't have to borrow E's anymore.

She's a champion eater and I hope she keeps this up. She'll try anything and likes just about everything. Her favorite goods so far are grapes, scrambled eggs, chicken, and pizza! She doesn't like bananas or avocado. I guess I'll be the only avocado lover in the family.

Cora says a few words; Momma, Dadda, boat, book, bubble and hello. She knows how to tell us what she wants without words, she'll point and grunt until we figure it out. She's also a swatter when she doesn't want something. Don't try to help her with her bottle, she'll swat you away. Mike and I call her our wild woman.

Cora has always been a horrible sleeper and I was hoping with age she would get better. Nope, if anything she's regressed. She did sleep through the night for a few months but that was a while ago. She usually ends up in bed with Mike and me and she's such a light sleeper if you try to move her she's back up. We play musical beds in our family. For now it works and maybe someday I'll have the heart to let her cry it out.

That's my baby girl at 1 year old. Happy Birthday Cora Lee! You are the sweetest sassiest girl and I love bunches and bunches!

Where I've Been, My Blogging Hiatus

I'd like to say I've been off traveling or doing creative wonderful DIY projects around my house. But I haven't. I'd like to say I've been focusing all my time on potty training or sleep training my almost 1 year old...again. But I haven't. Nope, I've been spending any free minute to binge watch Scandal. I jumped on the Olivia Pope bandwagon shortly after the holidays and I was immediately hooked. I would sacrifice sleep to watch just one more episode on Netflix. When I got caught up to the current season, I paid my $1.99 per episode on Amazon Prime and now I'm caught up and look forward to my weekly Scandal fix. 

I'm a sucker for any political drama, but with Scandal I get so much more. The chemistry between Olivia and Fitz is addicting and then there's Scott Foley. Need I say more? It's like a I'm a teenage girl again watching Felicity. 

So yes, the past 3 months have been filled with lots of TV watching. Isnt' that what MN winters are for? We've also been keeping busy as a family with a trip to Florida in early March, both kids are in ECFE, church activities, and a 2 week stint of flu/cold that got the entire family. Now with spring upon us and my binge watching addiction in the past, I'm ready for days spent outside, bedtimes pushed back and the simplicity that warmer weather brings.

Christmas

This Christmas was filled with lots of family, food, gifts, blessings, and some sadness. I had two weeks off from work which allowed me to be fully present for the holidays. My house was festive and my meals were planned. I love Christmas time so I had been decorating, baking and listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving (yes, I'm one of those). My parents came up the Tuesday before Christmas and the plan was they would go home the Friday after then we'd head out to Mike's mom and dad's for the weekend and come back Monday. We'd have the reaming of the week to relax and have fun. Well, God had other plans. On Christmas Eve, my lovely Grandma Ruby went to heaven. She was 97 years old, lived a very full life and went peacefully. She went to sleep and didn't wake up for several days and then she was taken home. 

When my mom and dad arrived, we knew it was only a matter of days before Grandma would be gone but we decided to go on with our plans because that's what she would have wanted. We enjoyed a lovely Christmas Eve service at our church and came home and opened presents that night. Mom and I were stayed up late watching Christmas with the Kranks (a favorite). We finally decided to go to bed and as I was getting ready for bed, Cora woke up. I rocked her and was having a hard time getting her back to sleep. I heard my Mom's phone ring, it was shortly past midnight now, Christmas Day, and I knew Grandma was gone. I believe Cora knew too, that's why she wasn't sleeping.

Mom, Cora and I snuggled on the couch and talked about Grandma and how much fun she was, how much we would miss her but how happy we were together during this time. I'm so glad my last memory of my grandma is from this past fall when we visited her. E was playing basketball in the community area of Grandma's nursing home and whenever the ball would roll by Grandma, she would try to jump out of her chair and get it for him. I kept telling her not to do that! I'm grateful I was with my mom when she got the call about Grandma. This will be one of my most cherished Christmas memories, although sad, it was a special night of four generations being together. 

Mom and Dad left Christmas Day to take care of arrangements but we still had a wonderful Christmas. We had to cut Christmas short with Mike's family, we went out just for Saturday then headed to Iowa on Sunday for the funeral on Monday.  

Despite the sadness this Christmas came with, I still feel it was one of my best Christmases. E was totally into Christmas, enjoying Christmas movies and books and the decorations. He loved driving at night seeing all the houses lit up. "Do you see any Christmas lights Mommy?" he would ask. Then when he saw some he would shout, "Christmas lights!" It was also special because it was Cora's first Christmas. She wasn't into it much but she did enjoy eating the pine needles from the tree and pulling off the ornaments.

I think the reason I enjoyed this Christmas so much was because I was with family the majority of the time. We were able to carry on the Christmas spirit during a sad time because we were together. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas with ones they loved.

The Reality of Sharing

Cora is crawling now. Well it's more of a scoot than a true crawl. Needless to say, she is mobile. And that has turned E's world upside down. I would even venture to say that this new development has been a harder transition for E than when we first brought Cora home from the hospital. She wasn't touching his stuff then. Now it's "Oh no! Cora has my (insert whatever toy here)." Then E will take it away and Cora will cry. On the positive side, E will replace whatever he has taken away from Cora with one her "baby toys" as E likes to call them. But of course those aren't near as fun for Cora as what her big brother has. So there's been a lot of talk about sharing and modeling what taking turns looks like which can be exhausting. And honestly, it's kind of comical watching the two struggle over toys as long as I can step in before a complete meltdown from either one happens.

Mike and I agree that we don't think our kids need to share everything. That's just not a reasonable expectation to set for our kids. As adults, we don't share everything and me being an only child, I really don't share everything. Some things are mine and only mine and that's ok.

A while ago I read a story about a mother criticizing another mother at a park for not teaching her child to share. I can't remember what publication this story was in but the gist of it was that a child brought a truck to the park to play with and another child wanted to play with the truck too and the child was not sharing. The mother of the child with the truck did not intervene and make her child share. That's when the mother of the child without the truck made the criticizing comment about how that little boy must not have been taught to share. The mother defended her choice not to intervene because she felt her child had made a conscience choice to bring his truck to the park to play with and that's what the child was doing. Why should he have to give that up just because another child was upset he didn't have a truck to play with?

I find myself agreeing with this mom's logic. As adults we aren't required to share just to make someone happy. Why should we teach our children this when it's not reality? For instance, if I'm reading a book and someone sits down next to me and wants to read a book too but doesn't have one, I'm not going to automatically share my book just because sharing is the nice thing to do. There will be disappointments in life and not always getting what you want will be part of that. And yes, as an only child, I have on the rare occasion experienced the disappointment of not getting what I wanted.

Mike and I are trying to teach our children that some things we do share but it's ok to have special things that we don't always have to share. For example, E's blanket that he sleeps with every night, he doesn't need to share that with Cora. That's something that is very important to him. But when it comes to blocks, those we share. Mike and I use the phrase "that's a sharing toy" a lot. As we navigate through this lesson of sharing, I'm sure it will create some confusion for our kids on what to share and what doesn't have to be shared. It certainly is easier to teach them to share everything. But I'm hoping our approach in the long run will teach E and Cora to stand up for what is important to them but also know the importance of sharing what we have.

Basement Space

Our basement is done, well almost done if we're being completely honest. Done enough that we have been practically living down there. All we have left is a few trim boards to put up and finish up the closet that is behind the couch. We love it! It may have taken us Mike along with his dad and my dad a while, but it was well worth the wait. The amount of extra space it provides our family is priceless. Instead of having all the toys crammed into our tiny livingroom, we are able to spread out downstairs. I don't think my family could survive another long Minnesota winter without this additional space. We now have a place to play basketball and race cars. I also love that I don't have to constantly pick up toys. I can simply shut the door to the basement on those days when there just isn't enough time to get organized.

Not only do we have an amazing play space, but we've created a cozy area to watch movies and relax. During this season, we've been watching more TV than normal with all the Christmas specials. It's so fun to be cuddled up in our new basement watching Christmas shows and eating popcorn. Mike and I find ourselves spending time down here as well after the kids have gone to bed.

We've also created an office area in one corner which helped Mike and I get somewhat organized with all the paperwork one seems to accumulate. And now we finally have a space where we both can comfortably write, Mike with his books and me with my blog.

After growing up in a big four bedroom farm house with lots of space inside and out, I never dreamed that I would be able to raise my family of four in a small two bedroom house, but I'm doing it. We love our location. There's quick and easy access to the city and all it has to offer and I'm reasonably close to my work. Our experience with the school district has been great and we've found a church that feels like home. We know eventually we will outgrow our home but having this basement space will help us stay in our house longer until we are truly bursting at the seams and need to make a move.

As you can see from the pictures, we get lots of use from our basement, everything from farming, jumping, and folding clothes.