the ups, the downs, the weekend

my husband is training for his first marathon. i'm so excited for him and proud of him. he wanted to last year but with the addition of asher we just did not have the extra minutes in a weekend for him to do the runs. so sadly it got pushed off. well this year he vowed again that he was going to do it and i am determined not to push his goals off for another year. my husband is in shape all the time. even when he's at his fattest he's skinnier than most people. which means, if he's training for a marathon i can not let myself go, even for a minute. and i love eating chocolate. love it!
which leads me to this morning. i woke up before the kids-that never happens. i had energy-that never happens. i rolled over and said "mind if i go running?" i knew he wanted to go running today. he told me last night. and we have a double running stroller so we can go together-but let me tell you-it's one thing pushing a double running stroller, it's another doing it in high altitude, going uphill. (we live at the bottom of the hill no matter which direction you go.) he said he didn't mind. within 7 minutes i had brushed my teeth and was out the door with my running shoes on. i ran 4 1/2 miles in 45 minutes, got home, and fed the kids breakfast. paul was still getting ready to go running. he moves really slow on saturday mornings because "it's the weekend". and for me, the weekend is all about getting the stuff done i can't do during the week because i'm keeping up with the kids, wearing them out, getting them home for lunch, into bed for nap time, getting the house clean, laundry done, dinner made, grocery shopping. all of the things that go unnoticed literally every other minute of the week. he doesn't believe me that 30 minutes late on a lunch/nap schedule is a big deal. i assure you, it is! which led to more frustration. we got the kids down for naps and i hit the door to get my errands done.
and the neighborhood next door was having a garage sale. it's a really nice neighborhood. most houses go for $500,000 to $800,000. which means they've got nice stuff in those garage sales.
i scored these bad boys, all 4 for $50 (one sells for $40):

i'd show you how they look around the bar except we don't have the bar yet. give me a month or two.
and this bad boy for $5:

that will hide all of these secrets:

AND not pinch fingers. huge score. i love saving money, but best of all, i LOVE repurposing stuff and not buying things brand new and sending perfectly good stuff to the dump. LOVE it. my sister-in-law, jenn, is an amazing recycler. i seriously think she's eliminating the carbon footprint for at least 10 people all by herself. i wish i could be a smidgeon as good at it as she is.

and while i was getting those pictures off the camera i found these to tide you over for a while. asher eating a snack with all 5 of his teeth.

and karyssa taking a bubble bath. special treat around these parts because of asher's eczema. We're working on "smile" with out squinting her entire face.

obnoxious...and then cute

sooo....we have these new neighbors across the street and every day while my kids are napping she goes out onto her front porch and talks on her cell phone. why i don't know. probably because she doesn't want to wake her own kids from their naps. i'm telling you, i have had just about enough of it. and she has one of those voices that carries miles even when she's whispering. ANNOYING!!!!!

in other news asher has been putting things into things lately. it's so cute because he's mastered pulling everything out of things in the last month and just this week he's started putting things in. i love to see his little mind at work. he's also become a MASTER at climbing. he can climb anything and is starting to become, god help me, more fearless than karyssa. not sure what i'm gonna do with 2 fearless babes.

karyssa loves playing tag or hide and seek. if she can't get you to chase her she'll ask for hide. and we count to ten so she's started trying. but it's more like "one...two...ten...eight...hive...heven....mumble mumble not here come!!!" adorable. this morning i was hiding behind the shower curtain and she had a hard time finding me. i had to start talking so she'd come into the bathroom and investigate more. then she saw my feet and pulled the curtain back reeaaaalll slow and squealed with delight that i was there. she has started getting afraid of the dark. everything dark has a "monkey" in it. right after the incident at the zoo where the gorilla came face to face with her in a fit of glory the show "between the lions" read a book about a crazy monkey that got out of the zoo and followed this little boy home. then the little boy figured out the monkey wanted to become friends, but not until after running out of his room scared of the monkey. karyssa didn't get the end-her mind stopped at the part where the little boy ran away scared of the crazy monkey. and why not. 100% of her monkey experience has ended in wet pants. *sigh* so now EVERYTHING has a monkey that is scary.

smiling bumper to bumper traffic

today we had our little buddy aidan over. karyssa and aidan have had a connection since they were about 18 months old. probably before that even. they are just over 2 months apart and he is her favorite person, just after our speech therapist emily, to come over. this morning i said "guess who's coming over today? 2 people..." and she goes "aidan!?!" and i was like "wow, ya...how'd you guess?...and emily" which ensued about a minute of yay's and woohoo's romped through the living room. what can i say, i've turned her into a cheerleader.
later when he was over he was having a hard time with chairs. i had rearranged the chairs and he wanted to sit in the chair i was in so he was on the floor mulling it over and karyssa climbed down from speech therapy and put her hand on his shoulder to console him and gave him a sticker. seriously...the sweetest thing i think she's done in months. it brought both me and emily to tears. the big crocodile kind that just stay in your eyes but don't really fall out. that kind of tears.
then tonight we had a meeting at children's hospital and on the way home we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. except i kept noticing cars would slow down right next to me for a while and then speed up smiling. stumped i looked in my rearview mirror to catch her tiny little hand waving to all the people in the next lane. so if you were driving on I-270 this evening around 5:00 wondering why everyone in the right hand lane was smiling...it was karyssa passing out love. *sigh* dang i love that little thing!!!!

no really...make yourself at home

this is the kids easter picture. ugh! seriously-they are so cute. my eyes just dance when i look at them. i gave asher a haircut shortly before taking our easter pics. i've been ready to cut his hair for a while, but just not ready for him to start looking more like a little boy and less like a baby. but it was time. i've been asked what her name was many times in the past month, so it was a necessity now. *sigh* but i can't stop wondering who that little boy is in my baby's clothes and in my baby's bed and eating my baby's food.
easter night karyssa wanted juice instead of her nightly milk bottle. i asked numerous times if she was SURE she'd rather have a little bit of juice instead of an entire bottle of milk. she assured me each and every time that juice was her choice.
we are always working with her on choices so i let her pick juice. then when it was time for bed and asher got his big ole bottle of milk she melted into tears. cried off and on for almost an hour from her bed. "mooooomm mmiiiiiillllkkkk!!!" breaks. my. HEART!
i hate saying no. HATE it! most of the time i say yes, unless it's life threatening or seriously the answer is just plain no. so she doesn't hear no much. i just don't see the need to fight every battle and if it's not gonna hurt her or any one or any thing else i don't see why not. if she wants to blow bubbles before cleaning up, why not? we still clean up. if she wants to help clean up, why not? i make her wash her hands afterwards. so it came as a great surprise to her when i stuck to my guns that she had chosen juice instead of milk and was NOT going to get both. the very next morning she climbed out of bed, climbed into bed with me to snuggle and watch a little cat in the hat while i woke up. but it took me an hour to wake up. later asher was walking around with a bottle and neither paul nor i could remember the last time we had a bottle upstairs since we'd spent the weekend at grandma and grandpas. so we took the bottle away from him, assuming it was rotten and fed the kids breakfast. then when it was time for bottles i looked in the fridge and no bottle! nowhere...it was a very odd feeling. i know me and paul are the only ones who get in the fridge and i know for fact neither one of us had drunk it because neither one of us can drink dairy. then i realized...the bottle asher had been carrying around WAS the bottle we made for her last night. at some point, maybe while paul was in the shower, she went downstairs and got her bottle of milk from the night before. i was so baffled and surprised. i said "karyssa, did you take the bottle out of the fridge this morning?" "ya, morning." she said. and i remembered, last night through tears (have i mentioned i hate it when they cry?) i bent over her in bed and told her "you chose juice. you can have your milk tomorrow, but tonight you chose juice...next time you need to think about your choices." i've seen her open the fridge a time or two but i didn't realize that she would actually just help herself to what's in the fridge. and technically i did tell her that "tomorrow" she could have it, so she wasn't disobeying me. it's a whole new world for her being able to open the fridge. a whole new world of chilled possibilities. and later i realized how comfortable she is becoming because at snack time she opened the fridge and got out the strawberries and grapes by herself, shut the fridge door, just like i do, and headed for the couch to watch pocahontas and eat herself a little snack. i did draw the line there. next thing i know she's gonna have one hand down her pants and the other on the remote control for pete's sake. and what am i supposed to say? this IS her house. she IS at home...so why not make herself at home?