Outside

It was such a beautiful day that Ryan and the kids spent a large amount of time outside working on the yard and the garden.  Before long it'll be time to set up their swimming pool.  I'm certain they will both have a good time splashing and "swimming".

Aric's Black Eye and First Band Aid

It's amazing how he can smile moments after a "major" injury.

His first band aid.  Daddy was trying to distract him from the band aid.  Aric's first instinct was to take the band aid off.  It stayed on overnight and was gone early the next morning.

What a Week

The week started off well and somewhere around Wednesday it took a left turn towards a bad week.  I woke up Wednesday morning to a gray, rainy day and a large amount of errands before me that needed to be taken care of.  In spite of the weather, they didn't seem too daunting and I was challenged to get them done.  That is until I turned our computer on.  It turned on, but wouldn't load.  It got stuck on a black screen with white letters claiming a system file has been deleted and I would need to insert the program disk to repair the problem.  That would be fine and dandy if I actually had the Windows disk to insert.  After a long talk with Ryan, a lot of whining (by me) about where to take the computer and how it would affect my day, we decided that I should take it in to Best Buy, buy Windows 7 and have them install that and reload the missing system file.  Did I forget to mention that Aric is the deleter of the missing system file?  Apparently if you smack the keyboard enough times you can actually hit a combination of things to do damage to a computer. 

I took the kids to town, dropped off the computer, almost handed over my first-born to pay for the repairs and continued on with our errands.  Errands that were completed in the pouring rain causing my jeans to wick up 6 inches of water from the hem.  I hate wearing wet clothes especially jeans.  We went home and not long after I received a call from Best Buy advising that they could not do a simple upgrade and would need to completely restore the computer to the manufacturer's settings thus wiping out every file, picture and home movie on that computer.  Panic set in and I forked over an additional $100, another trip into town and my external hard drive to save every digitally captured moment in our children's lives.  By the end of Wednesday I realized I had no patience, an extreme amount of stress, no energy and felt like a failure since I hadn't been the best mom to my kids.  I wanted a do-over.  No such luck.

Wednesday night into Thursday morning I decided I would allow Kellyn to cry it out overnight.  There is no need for a 7-1/2 month old to wake up multiple times overnight.  In theory it sounded great, in practice it didn't work out so well.  That girl can cry.  And cry.  And cry.  And cry.  An hour into her crying after checking on her multiple times I decided it would be easier to feed her to sleep.  It worked.  I forgot to mention that I had tried this same thing on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning but had to cave when I realized she was overdressed and somehow breaking out of her pajamas.  After two failed attempts and not much sleep it just seems easier to get up and feed her when she wakes up.  At least I'll get more sleep that way.  Thursday evening I figured out some of Kellyn's issues. She is now the proud owner of two bottom front teeth.

Thursday I was brain dead due to lack of sleep.  It affected my ability to multi-task and I was given a stern talking to at the end of the day.  Honestly right now I struggle with having a negative work attitude since my brother died.  I just don't care.  Work is not important to me.  In the grand scheme of life it won't matter.  I work because I have to not because I want to.  Family and loved ones matter so much more.  That is a balance that I truly need to find, since I don't really want to carry a lackadaisical attitude around with me.  I digress, though. 

I did get to pick up my computer on Thursday afternoon completely restored and not missing any of my data.  I have made a mental note to back things up more frequently to avoid any future crises and Aric has been served a restraining order to not touch the computer with a ten foot pole.  My only problem with the computer is needing to find time to learn to navigate Windows 7 and to install all of the missing programs and drivers needed to run the printer, photo editing software, mp3 player, etc.  I don't quite realize what is missing until I want to use it. 

Friday was fine until Ryan came home from work late Friday evening.  I got Aric, who was still awake, out of bed and brought him down to say hi to daddy.  Aric fell out of a chair, cut his cheek open and gave himself a black eye all within five minutes of Ryan walking through the door.  After lots of tears, Aric's very first band aid, ice cream and some quality time with daddy and mommy watching Shrek, Aric finally went back to bed.

On Saturday Aric fell outside while playing, skinned his knee and earned his second bandaid.  He also scraped his forehead somehow in a separate incident.  He's looking a little rough.

Today.  Today is Sunday and the start of a new week.  It's sunny and warm and looking better already.

Recent Photos

Here are some recent photos that I've liked:

My shaggy, curly haired little boy.  He's had a trim since this photo, but it's not that much shorter.

I never seem to make it in front of the camera too often.

Aric's first trip to the arcade.  I think he was a little overwhelmed by everything, but had fun crashing the car with daddy.

I wish this photo was a little more focused.  I really like the subject matter, though: a daddy and his sweet little girl.

Sibling Love

This is what was going on while I was trying to cook dinner tonight:

I stopped to get some photos and then they started acting like sibilings:

Dear Ryan

I haven't had much to say lately.  It's not that I don't have things to say.  I just don't want to say them to anyone else only to you.  Therein lies the problem...

You wouldn't believe how much Aric has grown.  He likes to "zhump" all of the time, especially on the bed.  Ryan said that today Aric was "zhumping" off the ground into the air.  It's hard to believe he'll be two in another month (and three days).  He talks all of the time, too.  He's always asking "What's this?"  Some days it makes picking up his toys, especially the play food, quite time consuming when he wants to know what everything is.  The neat thing is he'll repeat everything we tell him.  You can almost see the little wheels in his brain turning as he's processing and absorbing everything.  The other night when Aric was supposed to be in bed sleeping he was actually up playing.  Ryan discovered him applying Grandma's mascara to his hands, his cheeks, his pajamas and pillowcase.  Aric is quite a handful.

Kellyn is such a beautiful little girl.  I'm asked all too often how I wound up with a blue eyed, blonde hair little girl.  I think she looks an awful lot like her daddy.  She's sitting up all of the time and working so hard on crawling.  She hasn't quite got the hang of it and often finds herself in a pushup position or scooting backwards.  It won't be too long before she's crawling all over the house.  No one would argue that Kellyn is a talker.   Most of the time I don't think she realizes all of that noise is coming out of her.  Her main interests are still eating, sleeping, talking, playing and trying to get Aric to notice her.  It's kind of different observing a sister look up to her older brother through the interactions of my children.  I hope Aric is as good to her as you were to me.

You might find it amusing that I had food poisoning and threw up in the middle of Ryan's grandmother's funeral mass.  I didn't find it too amusing having to choke back the pepto bismo and water that was coming up but what could I do stuck in the middle of the pew in the second row while everyone was kneeling in prayer.  That will teach me to sit in that spot again.  Wouldn't I have made a scene if I had climbed over the pews to run to the bathroom?  Thankfully, somehow no one noticed.  They all thought I was having a coughing fit.

Aric and Kellyn met the vast majority of their relatives over the past month.  It was probably a little too much family time actually, especially since none of it was planned.  I was glad to see everyone leave after having the chaos of a house full of unexpected guests all week long.  Well, that and they left just in time since our septic tank is now overflowing.  I am ready for some peace and quiet.  Calm, lots of calm.

It was windy yesterday and Ryan took Aric outside to fly a kite.  Aric was more interested in running around but they had a good time.  There weren't many clouds in the air, but it made me smile and think of you anyway. 

By the way, mom and I were talking and think that you need more practice at making those sandcastles. They aren't quite distinguishable amongst all of the other lumps in the sky.  I'm still faithfully looking, though.  People actually might think I'm going crazy by the amount I'm looking in the sky.

Ryan is good.  He's been taking care of me and doing all he can for us.  Yesterday he the kids gave me the sweetest Mother's Day gift.  It was a digital picture frame.  I'll have to find some time to dig through pictures and get more added to it. 

I'm doing okay.  Trying to keep it all together and get through the chaos of my life.  I have had so much on my plate that I haven't dealt with things like I need to.  That's okay, though, someday I'll just be the crazy woman crying hysterically in the bread aisle of the grocery store.  Then I'll be able to pick up the pieces and go on.

Well, I'm going to go before I really start to cry.  Aric either broke my nose yesterday or just clocked me really good.  It really doesn't matter which, I just know that it really, really hurts to blow my nose and I'd prefer not to until it heals.

Kiss my babies and keep working on those sand castles.